Newswise — Legendary country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton and her niece Hannah Dennison were honored Thursday at the dedication of the newly named Hannah Dennison Butterfly Garden at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
The dedication came after Parton announced a $1 million gift to Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Cancer Program last October while visiting patients with her niece, Dennison, who was treated for leukemia as a child at Children’s Hospital for four years, beginning in 1993.
Parton said the gift was made “in honor of my niece Hannah, my sister Rachel, Hannah’s dad, Richard, and Dr. Naji Abumrad.”
“It was important to me to make a donation to the Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt because of Hannah’s care and just how well they do for everyone,” Parton said. “It’s been a good hospital for us. This is just a great group of doctors and nurses that provide the best of care, and it was the least I could do.”
The Hannah Dennison Butterfly Garden is located on the hospital’s second floor, also known as Main Street.
“Dolly is known the world over for her kind and generous spirit. We are incredibly grateful for the support that she, her sister Rachel and niece Hannah have shown for Children’s Hospital and our programs in childhood cancer,” said Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
“Dolly’s symbol is the butterfly, so it only seems fitting that The Hannah Dennison Butterfly Garden will become a focal point of our hospital, offering patients and families an important respite while they are here.”
Following the presentation, Parton and Dennison visited with patients in Seacrest Studios at Children’s Hospital, where they answered questions, posed for photos and even celebrated Dennison’s 30th birthday with balloons and treats.
Parton’s gift will help Children’s Hospital care for even more children and adolescents with cancer.
Watch the dedication and Seacrest Studio interview with the children HERE. (Soundbites and b-roll elements are available HERE.)
About Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach #1 on the Billboard Country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. All-inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital downloads and compilation usage during her Hall of Fame career have reportedly topped a staggering 100 million records – which includes sales of her 2016 chart-topping disc Pure & Simple, her first number one album on the Billboard Country Album charts in twenty-five years. She has garnered eight Grammy Awards – including a 2017 win with Pentatonix in the Country Duo/Group Performance category for their collaboration on her iconic 1973 hit “Jolene” - 10 Country Music Association Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards, three American Music Awards and is one of only five female artists to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award. In 1999 Parton was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and became a member of the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. Broadcast Music Inc. honored Parton with their Icon Award in 2003, and in 2004 the U.S. Library of Congress presented her with their Living Legend Award for her contribution to the cultural heritage of the United States. This was followed in 2005 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts. The honors keep coming. The 2016 made for television movie, Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love is nominated in the “Television Movie” category for the 69th Annual Emmy Awards. The film also won in the TV and Cable category at the 68th Annual Christopher Awards, which also includes the Movieguide Epiphany Prize for Television. The film served as the follow-up to her highly rated 2015 film Coat Of Many Colors, also broadcast on NBC, which won the Academy of Country Music's Tex Ritter Award. In fall of 2017, Dolly released her first children’s album, "I Believe In You," a collection of songs for the young and young at heart on Dolly Records through her partnership with Sony Music Nashville; and it is available HERE. Kicking off 2018 in a momentous way, in January Parton received her first two Emmy Awards as the National Association of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Midsouth recognized the legend’s lifetime of giving back with the Governor’s Award and also presented her the Best Community Service program trophy for her Smoky Mountains Rise telethon, which raised more than $13 million dollars for her My People Fund which provided financial assistance to victims of the massive wildfires that impacted the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area in late November 2016. Also in January, Dolly Parton was honored with two Guinness World Records for the most decades with a Top 20 hit onBillboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and most hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart by a female artist. In February, Dolly presented the Imagination Library’s 100 Millionth Book to the Library of Congress to include in the collection in Washington, D.C. In 1995, Dolly Parton founded Imagination Library, a book gifting organization that mails books to children in Australia, Belize, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.
About Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt is one of the nation's leading children's hospitals, treating and helping to prevent a full range of pediatric health issues from colds and broken bones to complex heart diseases and cancer. The Department of Pediatrics within the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is currently ranked fourth in the nation in the total receipt of research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Children’s Hospital’s physicians are nationally recognized innovators in their fields who are discovering new ways to cure and prevent a host of childhood diseases. Their work is preventing and finding new treatments for diseases such as premature birth, cancer, heart disease, spina bifida, trauma and many other conditions, and is an investment in the future. Achieving 10 out of 10 nationally ranked pediatric specialties in 2017, Children’s Hospital was again named among the nation’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” for the 11th consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report.
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt opened in 2004, expanded its physical space in 2012, and is currently adding four new floors and 160,000 total sq. ft. The new expansion will help advance the size and scope of the hospital's mission.
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