Dolly Parton: A Rotarian at Heart
I was taking a little snooze on the I5 freeway the other day when Whitney Houston singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ filled the car. As I screeched along with her, I thought of Dolly Parton, the writer of that song. You know, Dolly would have made a fabulous Rotarian. Well, guess what—she did indeed make a fabulous Rotarian!
Dolly is famous for her sparkle, wit, and a voice you can recognize anytime, anywhere. But beneath the rhinestones is something Rotarians recognize instantly: a generous heart, a practical plan, and a determination to leave a community better than she found it. She may not have worn a Rotary pin from 9-5, but she lived “Service Above Self” around the clock.
Her giving reached across health care, education, disaster relief, scholarships, and support for families in East Tennessee. She helped her neighbors after the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, supported medical and scientific work (particularly Covid research) and consistently used her fame as a megaphone for people who needed a voice. Dolly understood a basic Rotary truth: compassion is wonderful, but compassion with action gets the job done. And still leaves time for Happy Bucks at the end of the meeting.
The clearest example is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. She created it in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, inspired by her father, who never learned to read or write. The idea was beautifully simple: mail a carefully selected, age-appropriate book to a child every month, from birth through age five, at no cost to the family.
Dolly deliberately made the program available without an income test because sometimes people—particularly in the South—are embarrassed by charity. No labels. No stigma. If you were a little kid, a book would arrive simply because your community believed in you. Even more brilliant, the package was addressed to the child. Anyone who has watched a preschooler receive personal mail knows that, for a few glorious minutes, they become the biggest person in the house.
From that local beginning, the Imagination Library grew across five countries. It now sends millions of books each month; it has gifted over 300 million books to date. A child enrolled from birth can build a library of roughly 60 books before kindergarten. Do you know what it means to a kid when they have their own books? That’s not just a stack of bedtime stories. It’s vocabulary, confidence, and quality time with an adult. It’s permission to imagine a bigger future. All the more so if the characters are representative of them and the world around them. Dolly found a way to improve someone’s nine-to-five years before they were even old enough to know what a timecard was.
Rotary International began working with the Imagination Library in 2009. Local clubs helped raise funds, enroll children, spread the word, and build community partnerships. Dolly supplied the vision and the book-gifting system. Rotarians supplied what Rotarians do best: local knowledge, willing hands, and at least one person with a sign-up sheet. Dolly brought the star power; Rotary brought the people power—and a clipboard or two.
Dolly was a keynote speaker at our 2010 Rotary International Convention in Montréal. There she received her Paul Harris Fellow recognition, our way of honoring someone whose service reflects our ideals. She was also named an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Cleethorpes in England. So, to be precise, Dolly was indeed a Rotarian–not just a regular dues-paying member ducking out of work for a long lunch meeting. Her Rotary connection was built through partnership, that honorary membership, and shared service. This also meant she was spared from saying the Four-Way Test every week.
What made Dolly a Rotarian? Her heart and her determination. She saw a need. She chose a solution that preserved dignity. She welcomed partners. She stayed with the work long enough for a small county program to become a worldwide movement. And she made service joyful. No eighty-million-point strategic memo, no sleep-inducing lectures, no resultant snoring, just a kid who gets her/his own book in their mailbox, addressed to them and a reminder that someone believes in them.
So today, on 9-to-5 Day, let’s honor Dolly not only by singing badly, tapping our toes, or declaring war on Artificial Intelligence (our workplace nemesis) but by following her example. Let’s ask whether every child in our community has books of their own. Let’s support the Imagination Library where it operates, help bring it to communities where it does not. Let’s read with a child, fund a year of books, or recruit a community partner. Let’s support our local traditional libraries. Let’s support early childhood education, eradicate illiteracy and ignorance, and build a better future for all of us.
Dolly Parton showed us that changing the world does not always begin with a corner office, a pontifical speech, or a committee meeting that could have been an email. Sometimes it begins with a little book, a little child, and a whole lot of heart. That sounds like Dolly. And that sounds an awful lot like Rotary.
Happy 9-to-5 Day! May we work from nine to five, serve beyond five to nine, and—like Dolly—make every single hour count.
Submitted By:
Paula Day Williams
President, 2025-2026
Rotary Club of the University District, Seattle
