Dolly Parton pitches in toward Hurricane Helene relief efforts

By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — Dolly Parton is doing her best to lend support to flood- and storm-ravaged areas in the aftermath of Helene.

Parton, along with her companies Dollywood Parks & Resorts, The Dollywood Foundation, Dolly Parton’s Stampede and Pirates Voyage, will partner with Walmart to provide significant donations to flood relief across the Appalachian region.

The efforts were announced Friday at a Walmart in Newport, Tennessee, where meals, showers and laundry facilities are being offered to community members affected by the unprecedented flooding in the area.

Parton, who was present at the event, said that like everyone else, she has been “trying to absorb” the destruction and loss caused by the hurricane, which killed more than 200 people and left multitudes without homes.

“We’re all here to mend these broken hearts,” she said, adding that she really wished “we were all together for a different reason.”

“Who knew, in our little part of the country here – where I was born and raised, just right down the road – that we would have this kind of devastation? When I look around, I think, ‘These are my mountains, these are my valleys, these are my rivers… these are my people, and this is my home.’”

Parton later mentioned how “personal” this cause is to her. “I have a of my own relatives that live here, and when we heard about this, it was devastating, not just because it was my family, because all these people feel like my people. We all feel related, and we are in some sort of way. So it just devastated me just to know that we had to suffer like that.”

She announced a $1 million personal donation to the Mountain Ways Foundation, a registered charitable organization dedicated to providing immediate assistance to Helene flood victims. Additionally, Dolly’s aforementioned East Tennessee businesses along with The Dollywood Foundation are combining efforts to match her donation to Mountain Ways with an added $1 million contribution.

At the event, Walmart US president and CEO John Furner announced that Walmart, including Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation, would donate a total of $10 million to hurricane relief efforts across the affected states.

The monstrously sized Category 4 Hurricane Helene carved a more than 500-mile path of destruction across the Southeast and has killed over 200 people – the second-deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland in the past 50 years behind Hurricane Katrina 19 years ago.

The storm threw down so much water over the southern Appalachians over a 3-day span that it was a widespread once-in-1,000 year rainfall event for the region, according the National Weather Service.

All of that water barreled down the mountains, liquifying the slopes in some places into devastating mudslides that wiped homes off their foundations. Water levels surged feet higher than they’d ever been observed before, charting a new course as they wiped out dozens of bridges, roads and homes and sent them downstream.

CNN’s Eric Zerkel contributed to this report.

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