Charity Begins At Dolly

She's A Giver
Dolly Parton

When in doubt, bend it like Dolly! 

The Dollywood Foundation administered the final distribution from the My People Fund on Thursday with recipients noticing an extra surprise when they received the check.

Thanks to fundraising efforts, Dollywood Foundation officials were able to provide a $5,000 check to each family as they work to recover from the Smoky Mountain wildfires which occurred last November. Beginning last December, the My People Fund provided $1,000 each month to Sevier County families whose primary residences were completely destroyed due to the fires.

In total, recipients received $10,000 as a hand-up to help start their rebuilding efforts following the fire. The fund, which was established by Dolly Parton, The Dollywood Company, Parton’s dinner theaters and The Dollywood Foundation, was supported by contributions from across the country, as well as donations made through the Smoky Mountains Rise telethon which took place in early December.

“The My People Fund has been a great success,” said Parton. “I want to thank my team, the Dollywood Foundation, my friends in the music business and the thousands of people from all over the country who opened both their pocketbooks and their hearts to help us.

“Over the last five months, we’ve given nearly 900 families $5,000 to help them recover. Yesterday, we had our last distribution and I went over to The LeConte Center to say thanks to all the volunteers and to help give out a few checks myself. We matched what they’ve received already with another $5,000 check. I know $10,000 can’t solve everything, but I do hope the money will help them to dream again.”

In addition to providing initial monetary support to displaced families through the monthly check distribution, the remaining funds from theMy People Fund will continue to help the people of Sevier County. At least $3 million will be contributed to the Mountain Tough Recovery Team which will serve the continuing needs of residents during the critical rebuilding period ahead. This program will begin helping families on June 1.

“We’re still receiving money, so we aren’t finished yet,” Parton added. “Recovery will take some time, so a new organization—called Mountain Tough—has been created to help our people get back on their feet for the next three years. We’re giving at least $3 million to help this new organization begin the next chapter of our journey.”

Mountain Tough assists individuals and families recovering from the wildfires by providing resources for the unmet needs of low-income families and individuals in Gatlinburg and the surrounding Sevier County area. The team seeks to restore the quality of life and provide for the long-term needs of those affected.

“Mountain Tough will help pick up where the My People Fund left off,” Dollywood Foundation President David Dotson said. “They will be staffed with case managers who will work to identify the immediate needs of residents and our funds will be used to address those needs. For example, it may help with transportation so someone can continue to be employed, or it may help with medicine for conditions caused by the fire. The case managers will coordinate with county agencies to ensure needed assistance is not duplicated and achieves its maximum impact.”

Anyone who wants to help the Mountain Tough Recovery Team with their efforts should visit www.mountaintough.org for information on how to donate, how to volunteer and much more. The website is the official source for all information regarding the recovery effort.
 

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ON DOLLY PARTON, VISIT:
www.dollyparton.com

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Encore! Encore! Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors"

Dolly Parton Wishes You a Merry Christmas!

TV Movie Will Air Once More December 25 9/8c

Snuggle up with your favorite coat and watch! 

Less than a week after 15.6 million viewers watched “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors,” NBC is giving families another chance to watch the TV movie with an encore special presentation Christmas Day at 9/8c. "I hoped to bring some families together so they could sit and watch a move like this. I really wanted to celebrate the people, my whole family, who made me who and what I am today. I'm so blessed and thankful for everyone who watched and I hope this story reaches many, many more when NBC shows it Christmas night," said Parton. “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors” ranks as the most-watched film on the four broadcast networks in more than six years with 13 million viewers during the initial Dec. 10 broadcast, and Nielsen live +3 nudging the total up by 2.5 million to an overall 15.6 million, plus a 27% hike that nudged the 18-49 demo from a 1.8 to 2.3. L+3 ratings measure live viewing plus DVR viewing up to three days later. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor musical about Parton’s whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family’s life around the time she was 9 years old. “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors” is the first in a planned series of TV movies inspired by the country music icon’s songs. The TV movie is available to watch now on NBC.com, NBC apps and Set-Top Box On Demand. # # # WATCH NOW: www.nbc.com/coat-of-many-colors/video/dolly-partons-coat-of-many-colors/2948111 RECOMMENDED TWEET: .@nbc to re-air @DollyParton's #CoatofManyColors Dec. 25 9/8c after incredible ratings success - LINK   For more information on Dolly Parton, visit: www.dollypartonentertainment.com Facebook: Facebook.com/DollyParton Instagram: Instagram.com/DollyParton Twitter: Twitter.com/DollyParton Tumblr: OfficialDollyParton.tumblr.com Google+: Plus.Google.com/+DollyParton

Dudley Saunders - "Zero Out"

Dudley Saunders
Photo: Dean Carpenter

Dudley is back with his fourth video from IN THESE BOXES, Zero Out, here is a message from the artist::

Here is the fourth lyric video from IN THESE BOXES.  This is actually the beginning of the piece.  So, in a more perfect world, it would have been the first video I uploaded, not the fourth.  But life is messy. Art is messier. 

​Here's the text that opens the performance:
"When I was 19, I moved from Kentucky to New York’s East Village.  And I began to see something on the street I didn’t understand.

I’d see boxes, full of the contents of someone’s entire life, stuffed in the garbage cans of tenement apartment buildings.  Boxes full of things, like a twenty year collection of playbills, black leather harnesses and unframed paintings, posters, clothes still on their hangers, handwritten letters and spiral notebooks and bills and the odd objects that could only be someone's mementos.  All of it, stuffed into the garbage.  I saw this over and over again.

                                                                       Zero Out

Then years passed.  And in the summer of 1991, my two ex-lovers died within three months of each.  And this was bad, of course, but it was something else that had my attention. 

I realized that all the people who had witnessed our lives together were also dead.  These were the Plague Years, and my life had just become extinct.

And I finally understood about those boxes in the garbage: people had died of AIDS, their families had abandoned them, and their friends were all dead.  The objects I still owned were the only evidence that we had existed.  I alone knew the stories inside them.  And I wanted to reach back through time, into that garbage, into those boxes, and save the objects and find a way to tease out their missing stories.  To keep them from disappearing."

Get more Dudley at: 
https://www.facebook.com/DudleySaundersMusic
https://twitter.com/dudleysaunders
http://www.reverbnation.com/dudleysaunders

F#ck Off! Dolce & Gabbana.

Sharon Stone Rulz!

If you own any Dolce & Gabbana, you are forgiven until now. These two tools have bit the hand that feeds them. The founders have made terrible comments about the following: same-sex parenting and what one of them dubbed "synthetic" children conceived via artificial insemination.

Well one of my favorite actresses and people I have met Sharon Stone was among those to defend what's right. Here is her awesome statement below.

"We must meet this type of cruelty towards children who are in need and want homes and families with love and open homes," she said in a statement to E! News. "We must meet these type of behaviors with thoughts turned inward towards ourselves. ‘How can I give more to a child in need, how can I do more for the children of this world who need more and deserve more?'"

"To spend time raging against a closed mind is to waste oneself, a self that can be better spent loving where that love is has been removed from," she added. "To dismiss modern medicine as it helps loving people become loving parents is to dismiss all of the miracles of modern medicine."

Ms. Stone has three adopted sons.

Thus if you buy or still support Dolce & Gabbana, you are a jerk.

Sharon Stone on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000232/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1 

For A Good Cause: O.A.R. & Phillip Phillips

O.A.R. and Phillip Phillips give it up for a great cause, Habitat for Humanity International. Keep the love flowing..

Rock band O.A.R. and singer Phillip Phillips announced today their joint summer tour will benefit Habitat for Humanity to support the organization’s mission of providing safe, decent, affordable housing in partnership with low-income families.

“Home means everything to us. It’s our DNA. It’s who we are,” said Marc Roberge of O.A.R.  “We had the chance to meet amazing people building Habitat for Humanity homes in LA, pouring love and sweat into the foundation, taking pride in the work they were doing, alongside the Habitat partner family, and it was an honor to be a part of that. Words can’t properly describe the positive swell that brought to our hearts. We hope the donation from our tour will help families, like the ones we met, achieve their dreams of homeownership.”

The 24-city joint tour kicks off in St. Louis on June 12 and wraps up in Atlanta on July 26. For every ticket sold, O.A.R. and Phillip Phillips will donate $1 to Habitat. The tour will also host online auctions for a VIP experience in each city, including two premium tickets and an opportunity to meet with the artists. Proceeds from the auctions will go to local Habitat affiliates.

“My team has personally seen the incredible impact Habitat for Humanity can have on lives. We have worked on builds from the Musician's Village rebuild in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina to local neighborhoods in my community,” said Phillip Phillips. “Habitat's roots stem from my home state of Georgia but their reach is now worldwide  I am honored to partner with Habitat for Humanity in carrying out their mission - to build homes, communities, and hope."
 
The artists will also donate 10 concert tickets to the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in each tour city, for use by Habitat volunteers and staff, as well as Habitat partner homeowner families, who they will meet at each tour stop. Habitat affiliates will be provided with space at each venue to raise awareness about their affordable housing work within their communities.

“O.A.R. and Phillip Phillips share our passion for helping low-income families realize the dream of homeownership,” said Colleen Ridenhour, deputy director of Corporate, Foundation and Institution Relations for Habitat for Humanity International. “We are honored to be recognized during their summer tour and are grateful for their generosity in helping raise funds to create safe, decent, affordable housing.”
 

O.A.R. – Phillip Phillips joint tour dates:

June 12:  Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO                                                      
June 13:  Crossroads, Kansas City, MO
June 14:  Red Rocks, Morrison, CO                                        
June 15:  Stir Cove, Council Bluffs, IA
June 17:  LC Pavilion, Columbus, OH                                     
June 18:  Stage AE, Pittsburgh, PA
June 20:  Jacobs Pavilion Nautica, Cleveland, OH                              
June 21:  FirstMerit Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago
June 22:  Freedom Hill Amphitheatre, Sterling Heights, MI           
June 23:  Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, MI
June 28:  Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, OH                             
July 2:    Art Park, Lewiston, NY
July 6:    Foxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, CT      
July 10:  Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, Boston, MA
July 11:  Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY   
July 12:  P.N.C. Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ
July 13:  Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC                     
July 16:  Uptown Amphitheatre at the NC Music, Charlotte
July 18:  Festival Pier at Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, PA              
July 19:  Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
July 20:  NTELOS Pavilion, Portsmouth, VA                                          
July 24:  Innsbrook Pavilion, Glen Allen, VA
July 25:  Family Circle Tennis Center, Charleston, SC      
July 26:  Chastain Park Amphitheatre, Atlanta, GA

About Habitat for Humanity International


Habitat for Humanity International’s vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Anchored by the conviction that housing provides a critical foundation for breaking the cycle of poverty, Habitat has helped more than 4 million people construct, rehabilitate or preserve homes since 1976. Habitat also advocates to improve access to decent and affordable shelter and supports a variety of funding models that enable families with limited resources to make needed improvements on their homes as their time and resources allow. As a nonprofit Christian housing organization, Habitat works in more than 70 countries and welcomes people of all races, religions and nationalities to partner in its mission. To learn more, donate or volunteer visit habitat.org.