A new $55 million medical facility in South Carolina includes a special outdoor retreat built with a $100,000 donation from country music star Dolly Parton. The hospital was built on a 48-acre site along Furman L. The gift also honours her family’s roots in the local area. The new Union Medical Center, part of the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, marked its opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Fendley Highway. One of its main features is an outdoor healing garden. It offers a peaceful, open-air space for patients recovering from illness, visiting families and hospital staff. Parton’s donation went directly to the facility’s Patient Enhancement Project, which paid for the garden’s construction and landscaping. The space gives people a quiet place to rest away from hospital wards and treatment rooms.
The $100,000 donation to Union Medical Center is part of Parton’s wider record of charitable work in healthcare, education and disaster relief. Much of her charitable work is carried out through the Dollywood Foundation, which was established in 1988, according to official information on her philanthropy website. The foundation runs the Imagination Library, a book-gifting programme that has sent more than 200 million free books to children from birth to age five. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee. The money helped support early research and development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
The programme operates across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the Republic of Ireland. Parton has also made major donations to medical institutions over several decades. She also funded the Hannah Dennison Center at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, named in honour of her niece, and supported research programmes focused on childhood cancer. The healing garden at Union Medical Center provides a lasting tribute to Parton’s mother and her family’s history in South Carolina. It will give future hospital visitors a peaceful place to spend time while receiving medical treatment or supporting loved ones.
The hospital was designed to offer a complete approach to healthcare, according to the 2024 Spartanburg Regional Foundation Impact Report. The healing garden was designed to extend the hospital’s care spaces into the outdoors. It includes paved paths, outdoor seating, green spaces and quiet areas. These features are intended to help reduce stress for families dealing with medical emergencies and other health challenges. Medical staff and healthcare leaders at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System highlighted the role of natural spaces in helping patients recover. It brings modern emergency care and doctors’ offices together under one roof, while also providing easy access to green spaces. The report noted that Parton was joined by other donors, including local community leader Barbara Rippy and J. Carlisle Oxner III. They provided significant financial support to improve the environment for patients at the new centre. During the hospital’s opening events, Parton sent a personal message to hospital leaders and the Union community. She expressed her support for the staff and the patients who will use the new space.