Rosie Waterland
speaker
14,460 appearances
17 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 3 Sep
Rosie Waterland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 17 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 8.
Appearances
So in 1988...
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I mean, she was doing a lot of stuff before that, but this is when she officially launches the Dollywood Foundation.
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It starts in her home county, Sevier County in Tennessee.
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She initially starts the buddy program in which she promises all high school students in that county $500 if they graduate high
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gosh.
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The dropout rate goes from 35% to 6%.
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That's
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Yeah.
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So just simple things to help the people from the town where she grew up, you know.
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Yeah, huge.
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I remember my uncle –
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promised me because I was getting really lazy at high school that he would give me $1,000 if I got over 90 in the HSC.
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And I was like, game on, motherfucker.
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I honestly think that's the
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did because I wanted that $1,000.
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The next year in 1989, she then promises a further $500 scholarship to any Sevier student who wanted to attend the local Hiwasi College.
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Um, she then over the years spread the buddy program to various other counties in the U S
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like, you know, disadvantaged kids or with really low graduation rates.
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Um, the Dollywood foundation gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarships out every year to people who get into college, even still.
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Um, in 1995, she starts what is probably her most famous philanthropic venture, the imagination library.
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Showing 901–920 of 14,460 · page 46 of 723
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