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You know if Dolly Parton is anywhere near the story, it’s going to be good news for your Friday. And this is no exception. Dolly’s amusement park, Dollywood, is implementing an educational program that offers full tuition for all its employees. That’s right – all employees. So full-time, part-time and seasonal employees will be eligible for full tuition, fees and books. The program is called GROW U and is being funded by Herschend Enterprises, Dolly’s operating partner in Dollywood. And it’s being offered to Dollywood employees across the country.
Employees at Dollywood working 9 to 5, or other schedules, will soon be eligible for a new program paying 100% of tuition, fees and books if they want to seek degrees or other educational opportunities.
Herschend Enterprises, Dolly Parton’s operating partner in Dollywood, will fund the educational fees through a new program called GROW U. It will be available for seasonal, part-time and full-time employees beginning Feb. 24.
Herschend Enterprises will offer the program to 11,000 employees at Dollywood Parks & Resorts in addition to employees at its attractions across the country.
The GROW U program offers workers more than 100 diploma, degree and certificate programs from 30 “learning partners,” according to a Tuesday news release from Dollywood. It will also provide partial funding, up to $5,250 per year, for 150 other programs in hospitality, engineering, human resources and art design.
“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. When our hosts strive to grow themselves, it makes our business and our community a truly better place,” Eugene Naughton, president of The Dollywood Co., said in a statement.
[From USA Today via Yahoo]
Side-note – I want credit for not making the 9 to 5 joke that every other outlet is making. Grow U is powered by Guild Education. They work with many corporations including Disney, Walmart and Discover. I love that Dollywood is also offering partial tuition to 150 additional programs. That kind of flexibility speaks to their dedication to their “learn more” tenet. So does the variety of certificates they’re funding. Those degrees will be applicable in many careers.
Obviously, this is huge. It’s hard enough to work and go to school but trying to work enough to pay for school and spend the time to earn a degree will beat a person down. Having tuition, fees and books covered is going to take so much pressure off those folks. And rarely do these sorts of programs apply to anyone other than full-time employees. The fact that this is extending as far as seasonal workers is so, well, Dolly-like, isn’t it? We know that Dolly encourages learning and making those resources available to those who don’t have them. She’s doing incredible work with her Imagination Library free book program. So this educational opportunity for those who work for her doesn’t surprise me, it just fills me with joy. And reaffirms my faith that we can nice things, at least as long as Dolly’s around. Which now includes Dolly’s Baking collection!
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