Back in 1988, Dolly Parton noticed something deeply troubling in her Tennessee hometown: nearly 35% of local high school students were dropping out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than simply watching it happen, the country music legend decided to step in and make a difference. \ud83c\udf93\u2728<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through her foundation, Dolly launched the \u201cBuddy Program,\u201d<\/strong> bringing together 7th and 8th grade students in Sevier County for a special assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She challenged the students to find a buddy and make a commitment to help one another stay in school. But Dolly added an extra incentive: if both students graduated from high school, she would personally give each of them a $500 check on graduation day.<\/strong> \ud83d\udcb5<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a time when $500 was a significant amount of money for a teenager, the offer certainly caught their attention. But Dolly\u2019s idea was about much more than the cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She gave students a goal to work toward and, perhaps more importantly, someone by their side to encourage them along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The results were remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dropout rate in Sevier County reportedly fell from 35% to just 6%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dolly Parton didn\u2019t simply offer these young people a financial reward. She gave them encouragement, motivation, and hope for a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a simple idea with a powerful message: sometimes, having someone believe in you can make all the difference. \u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back in 1988, Dolly Parton noticed something deeply troubling in her Tennessee hometown: nearly 35% of local high school students were dropping out. Rather than […]<\/a> CONTINUE READING >>><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions\/3473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paxtonhegmann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}