Dolly Parton joined Hurricane Helene relief efforts by donating $1 million of her own money, the country icon announced in a statement Friday. Parton’s Dollywood also pledged an additional $1 million to the Mountain Ways Foundation.
Walmart CEO John Furner joined the musician at a press conference on Friday in order to discuss how the company is helping to assist with delivery of supplies to hard hit areas in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia and other hard-hit areas. He further announced that Walmart and Sam’s Club will be upping their relief commitments to $10 million, up from $6 million.
“I’m happy to be here,” Parton said at the press conference. “And I’m sure a lot of you are wondering where I’ve been. Everybody’s saying, ‘Where’s Dolly? Well, I’ve been like everybody else, trying to absorb everything going on, trying to figure out all the best ways to do this,” she continued.
“You remember when we had the fires? Everybody pitched in, tried to do everything that they could. And so I really think that this is a time for me to step up again, for all of us to step up and do what we can. And of course today I wanted to announce that from myself personally, just from my own bank account, I’m donating a million dollars today. But there’s a lot to be done and we’re trying to find other ways to even raise more funds.”
The death toll from Hurricane Helene has surged past 200, while hundreds remain missing after the storm dumped trillions of gallons of water on the American South.
More than half the deaths have been recorded in Western North Carolina, where rain led to mudslides and landslides that devastated remote communities. U.S. Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) — who has been working to conduct rescue efforts with a number of organizations — laid out the dire situation in a video statement uploaded to X.
“As a Florida man, one of the places we went to recently, it was called Pensacola, North Carolina, very remote area, talked to the fire chief there, Mr. Harrison. He unfortunately reported that they had four fatalities, two more that is unaccounted for, that washed down the river, and he believes that they’re going to be recovering bodies for the next couple of months due to the amount of landslide that was in the area,” Mills reported three days after impact.
Rescue efforts have been hindered due the large number of roads that have been completely wiped out by the storm, cutting off thousands from communication, resupply and evacuation. Large swaths of the impact zone are only accessible by air more than a week after the storm made landfall on Florida’s gulf coast.
“We’re all here to mend these broken hearts, and that’s what I’m doing here,” she said. “So, I really, really wish that we were all together for another reason.”
“But we all have seen the devastation,” Parton added. “I mean, who knew in our little part of the country here where I was born, raised just right down the road, that we would have this kind of devastation? And I look around, and I think these are my mountains, these are my valleys. These are my rivers flowing like a stream. These are my people, these mountain-colored rainbows. These are my people. And this is my home.”
