Jason Kempin / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images
By
January Nelson
“When you have your first child, can I have it? Because that will be one special child,” Dolly said in the video, after thanking the couple three times in a row.
Dolly Parton wants dibs on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s baby. “Now it’s clear that you two have made giving back an important part of your lives,” he said in a video posted to his Instagram on Friday. “So, when you have your firstborn, can I have it? Because that will be one special child!”
The video is a thank you for the couple’s $2 million donation to her Imagination Library, a program Dolly founded in 1995 that sends a free book a month to children from birth to preschool. More than 318 million books have been shipped in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, and Australia.
“Taylor and Travis, it’s Dolly,” he opened. “I was just told that you two are making a $2 million donation to my Imagination Library. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am blown away and very happy with that thank you.” He closes by singing “I Will Always Love You.”
$2 million is one big donation. Swift and Kelce announced $26 million in donations (13 x 2, Taylor’s lucky number is doubled) to more than 20 organizations days before their wedding weekend, spread across food banks (City Harvest, LA Regional Food Bank, Food Bank for NYC), children’s hospitals (Children’s Mercy, MSK Kids, Hassenfeld), Apisent School, and Apisent School bound in Nashville, Kansas City, Cleveland, Reading, Los Angeles, New York, and Rhode Island.
The Imagination Library episode comes at a perfect time. Missouri, which used to fully fund the program in the state, reduced its budget from $6 million to $2 million and suspended new enrollments as of July 1. A similar crackdown has hit other states.
Travis Kelce liked Dolly’s post.
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