Dolly Parton released her first children’s album, I Believe In You, on Friday and celebrated with a $1 million U.S. donation to the Monroe Carell Jr. Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville.
The children gathered to meet the country star and to hear her sing, wearing butterfly wings as the country star did on the I Believe In You album cover. Parton also introduced her niece, 28-year-old Hannah Dennison, who had been treated for leukaemia when she was a child at the same hospital.
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Along with performing songs from the album like “Chemo Hero” and others, Parton visited some of the hospital’s sickest patients, and did a Facebook Live Q&A.
“I really am inspired and touched by everything and everybody that I see,” Parton said. “And when I was writing, especially these children’s songs, it’s a little different than the way I usually write songs because I love kids and I’m really close to my family.”
Proceeds from I Believe In You will be donated to Parton’s literacy foundation, Imagination Library, she said, and those from “Chemo Hero” will go directly toward medical care and research.