Dollywood offers to cover tuition, school fees for all staffers

Musician Dolly Parton’s family amusement park Dollywood is offering to cover tuition, school fees and books for all of its staffers, local affiliate WATE reported on Tuesday.

Herschend Enterprises, Dollywood’s parent company, said in a statement that a new pilot program called GROW U aims to provide educational opportunities for the 11,000 employees across its 25 U.S. attractions, which also include Wild Adventures in Georgia and the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky.

The initiative will give employees access to diploma, degree and certificate programs across 30 learning partners, with programs offered in business administration, leadership, culinary, finance and marketing.

Herschend Enterprises will also provide partial funding, up to $5,250 a year, for 150 additional educational programs in fields such as hospitality, engineering, human resources and art design. 

“We know when our hosts are happy and feel cared for that they are going to pass that along to our guests,” Dollywood Company president Eugene Naughton said in a statement to WATE. “The creation of the program allows another avenue for us to care for our hosts.

“One of The Dollywood Foundation’s key tenets is to ‘learn more.’ This program is created with that very tenet in mind. We want our hosts to develop themselves through advanced learning to fulfill the foundation’s other tenets: care more, dream more, and be more,” Naughton added. “When our hosts strive to grow themselves, it makes our business and our community a truly better place.”

GROW U is reportedly expected to launch on Feb. 24.