Country Music Doyenne Dolly Parton Gives $1 Million for Hurricane Relief

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Mountain Ways Foundation

Country music singer and songwriter Dolly Parton gave $1 million to help residents of eastern Tennessee who lost their homes in the floods that followed Hurricane Helene in late September. Parton said her enterprises in East Tennessee, including the Dollywood Foundation, Dollywood Parks and Resorts, Dolly Parton’s Stampede, and Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show, would collectively match her personal gift with an additional $1 million.

Parton grew up in Eastern Tennessee in a family with 12 children. She was born in the town of Pittman Center, and spent the bulk of her youth on a small farm in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Her family struggled to make ends meet, and those struggles informed much of Parton’s early songs. She started performing in church, playing the guitar as a young child and later singing on local radio. She moved to Nashville as a teen and worked as a song writer. Her singing career took off in the late 1960s and 1970s, and she became internationally known by the 1980s.

Parton has given millions to charity over the years, including about $5 million since 2020 to medical research, human services, and disaster relief, according to a Chronicle tally. Her Dollywood Foundation supports literacy, scholarships for high school students in Eastern Tennessee, and charities that help those in need.

Cornell University

John and Melissa Ceriale gave $20 million through their Melissa and John V. Ceriale Family Foundation for mental health services for students. Specifically, the money will pay for the placement of embedded therapists in the university’s undergraduate colleges and graduate and professional schools and will expand a well-being coaching program for all students.

John Ceriale founded Prospect Advisors, a consultancy that manages Blackstone Real Estate Advisors’ portfolio of luxury hotels. He joined the investment giant Blackstone and led its acquisition of luxury hotels after a career working for various hotel groups. He held executive positions at Westin Hotels North America, Fairmont Hotels, and the Albuquerque Marriott earlier in his career.

Melissa Ceriale had a sales career with Marriott Hotels & Resorts and later served as a principal of Prospect Design & Build, a construction management firm. The couple’s four children — Sheena Thomas, Christy Ceriale, Robby Ceriale, and Jack Ceriale — are Cornell alumni, and John Ceriale serves on the university’s Board of Trustees.

Coastal Enterprises Incorporated

MacKenzie Scott gave $15 million through her Yield Giving fund. The gift is unrestricted. The nonprofit’s leaders said in a news release that they plan to use the money to expand the community development financial institution’s support for small business owners, economic development programs, and job- and wealth-creation efforts aimed at helping people of color, women, immigrants, and refugees throughout Maine.

Scott is a novelist who helped create Amazon with her former husband, Jeff Bezos. Her net worth is estimated at $35 billion, and she has given a total of more than $17.3 billion to more than 2,000 nonprofits in the last four years. This is the philanthropist’s second donation to Coastal Enterprises. She gave the organization $10 million in 2020.

Glasswing International

Howard Buffett pledged $11.6 million through his Howard G. Buffett Foundation to support the nonprofit’s efforts to help vulnerable people in El Salvador and other Latin American countries through education, mental health, security and public safety, vocational training, and other programs.

Buffett, the oldest son of the billionaire financier Warren Buffett, owns farms in Illinois and Nebraska. He has given more than $65 million to Glasswing since 2018. His grants have backed public safety and social cohesion programs in El Salvador; the Jóvenes Líderes de Impacto project, which provides work experience, life-skills training, and transitional support to young people in Guatemala and Honduras; and programs aimed at addressing the root causes of migration.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

J. David and Dianne Rosenberg pledged $10 million to establish the Dianne and J. David Rosenberg Innovation Fund, an endowment that will support the orchestra’s efforts to attract new audiences. The money will back new commissions, recordings, experimental concerts, and education programming.

J. David Rosenberg is a senior partner at the Cincinnati law firm Keating, Muething & Klekamp, where he has practiced since 1974. Dianne Rosenberg is chairwoman of the orchestra’s Board of Directors.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

John Barry and Daria Becker Barry gave $5 million through their John and Daria Barry Foundation to support the Center for Ophthalmic Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, which will be renamed for the donors. The money will be used to recruit a new director and a junior or midlevel A.I. scientist and back ongoing research. It will also establish a clinical ophthalmology fellowship program in ophthalmic A.I. and digital health and support an effort to translate research findings into clinical care.

The couple lead Prospect Capital Corporation and Prospect Capital Management, an investment firm with offices in Darien, Conn., Palm Beach, Fla., and New York. John Barry is chairman and CEO of Prospect Capital Corporation, and he serves as the managing member of Prospect Management Group. He is a former attorney who previously managed the corporate finance department of L.F. Rothschild & Company, and worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch & Company.

Daria Becker Barry is head of administration and managing director at Prospect Capital Management. She started her career at Citibank, and went on to manage a real estate partnership and a family office that specialized in hedge fund and alternative investments before joining Prospect in 1998.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.