Dolly Parton donated $1 million to the research which created the Moderna vaccine

2019 MusiCares Person Of The Year Honoring Dolly Parton

I feel like we should put Dolly Parton in charge of everything? Put her in charge of race relations, put her in charge of education, put her in charge of the federal government, and absolutely put her in charge of the coronavirus vaccine. As it turns out, Dolly did her part in creating the newly-announced corona-vaccine from Moderna. Pfizer’s vaccine was announced last week, and Pfizer’s data indicates that their vaccine has a 90% efficacy rate. Moderna’s efficacy rate is even higher, and the vaccine doesn’t have such a short half-life. So where does Dolly come in? She donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, which was one of the groups working on the Moderna vaccine:

Not content with gifting the world with some of the greatest music ever, delivering an encyclopedia’s worth of quotable soundbites (“It costs me a lot of money to look this cheap”), starring in a brand new Christmas film and donating over 147 million free books to children, Dolly Parton has also played a part in saving us all from the hell hole that is 2020.

Yep, just when you thought Dolly couldn’t be any more of a saint, the country singer and philanthropist donated $1 million (£760,000) towards Covid-19 research which resulted in the Moderna vaccine.

According to The Daily Beast, Dolly became friends with Vanderbilt University surgeon Naji Abumrad after she was involved in a car accident in 2013. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the doctor showed the singer the research the university was doing on antibodies to combat Covid-19, and she stumped up a cool million to the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, which was involved in the Moderna vaccine trial.

[From HuffPo]

In Moderna’s own literature and disclosures about their vaccine, they even cite Dolly Parton as one of their funding partners. Dolly didn’t make it a secret either – she posted on her Instagram in early April that her “longtime friend” Naji Abumrad had briefed her about their research and work into a corona-vaccine and that’s why she donated $1 million. President Dolly!!

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32 Responses to “Dolly Parton donated $1 million to the research which created the Moderna vaccine”

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  1. Jaded says:

    God I love that woman.

  2. Sayrah says:

    Love her so much! You can also donate to the imagination library which is her organization that supplies free books every month to children until they go to kindergarten. She’s the best.

    • Oprah just interviewed Dolly and I watched it on APPLE + so I’m not sure if Netflix carries Oprah’s show too. I highly recommend it as its an amazing interview. Oprah brought up Dolly’s creation of the Imagination Library. She said she started it in honor of her dad who could neither read or write and as of 2020 they have gifted over 150,000,000 MILLION books to children worldwide. Even Oprah was blown away with that stat. Love her.

  3. Nina says:

    I have to quote a redditor here: every time I see Dolly’s name attached to a headline, I’ll known it will be good news.

    • olliesmom says:

      Yep. Never any bad gossip about Dolly. Everyone that has worked with her loves her and they can’t say enough good things about her.

    • Kelly says:

      Yep! She’s also amazing at disaster relief. I’ll never forget how much money she gave people directly after the fires in Gatlinburg.

    • coolspray says:

      So true! She is the BEST. I love her so much.

  4. ME says:

    We really need to thank anyone that was able to donate money for this research. We also need to give a huge thanks to the researchers and scientists that worked so hard in labs to get this vaccine made. And a VERY big thank you to the volunteers who risked their own health and safety by having this vaccine tested on them. MVP’s…all of them !

  5. Grant says:

    Wow. She’s incredible!

  6. Also Ali says:

    I need to do more with my life…

    She is amazing. Long live Dolly Parton.

  7. Ann says:

    Bless her. She is about as good as a human can get and I love her so much it gives me a lump in my throat. This beautiful, generous soul just keeps doing right by all of us.

  8. Mignionette says:

    Good for her.

    Does anyone know if she’s recd the medal for freedom yet ? Surely it’s time ?

    • olliesmom says:

      Yes! All the medals for Dolly! But you know she wouldn’t care/doesn’t care about medals and awards. But it would make the rest of us feel better.

    • liz says:

      Nope. Not yet. President Biden? Please, take care of this.

  9. Snuffles says:

    I don’t tend to like country music. One of the few people I will make an exception for is Dolly Parton. She’s just the GOAT. And just such a good person. Nothing but respect for her!

  10. Gil says:

    “Just make Dolly Parton queen of everything” . Hell yeah

  11. TomorrowsAlmostHere says:

    Naji Abumrad is the father of Jad Abumrad, the host of NPR’s Radiolab. They’ve got some wonderful episodes where Jad interviews his dad and Dolly about their friendship.

    • Chicken Tetrazzini! says:

      Dolly Parton’s America is the name of the podcast all about her produced by Jad. It was incredible and I left having learned so much more than I ever expected with a very real respect for Dolly and all that she stands for.

  12. Tiffany says:

    I still stand by this statement, I cannot trust someone who dislikes Dolly Parton.

    I will seriously side eye you for the rest of my days.

  13. Liz version 700 says:

    Dolly is a Queen I would love to have! She is amazing.

  14. IrrelevantGirl says:

    1. I love Dolly and we are not worthy of her
    2. I have a friend who took part in the Moderna trial. He doesn’t know yet if he received the vaccine or the placebo, but the side effects were minimal.

  15. Flamingo says:

    Dolly is the best. She has given back so much to the Nashville community, usually anonymously. She has also been incredibly generous with Vanderbilt Med Center in the past, so this comes as no surprise. She is just a national treasure.

  16. olliesmom says:

    Dolly gets things done. She actually loves the human race and wants to see them thrive and have good lives.

    Dolly is the exact opposite of the orange menace. Born dirt poor, learned good values and grew up to be a good person.

  17. K.T says:

    Brilliant heart and brilliant mind! Go Dolly Parton

  18. Toni says:

    Love her.
    When she performed at Glastonbury some bastard left their dog behind and she offered to adopt him if nobody came forward .

  19. holly hobby says:

    Dolly Parton is the best!

  20. Eleonora says:

    Force for good