Two days after Dolly Parton died, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood picked a date and made a promise.
On Thursday, August 27, the couple announced that their Nashville bar, Friends in Low Places Bar and Honky-Tonk at 411 Broadway, will host “Dolly Day” on September 25. Every dollar the bar takes in across that entire day goes to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
The press release Brooks shared put it plainly. Friends in Low Places will donate its entire income for the day to children’s literacy.
“Whatever the cash register says at the end of the day is going to Dolly’s passion,” Trisha Yearwood said in a statement. “This is 100 percent about Dolly and her love for children’s literacy.”
Plenty of businesses will run a Dolly special or name a cocktail after her. Handing over an entire Friday on Lower Broadway is a different kind of gesture.
The Date Is a Play on the Song Everybody Knows
September 25 written out reads 9/25, or nine two five, which is how the whole country now says “9 to 5.”
That single piece of wordplay has turned into a national movement in the weeks since her death. Businesses, cities, and state legislatures have all landed on the same date without much coordination, because the joke works and because everybody understood it immediately.
Brooks put his own view of her legacy in one line.
“Dolly may be the perfect example of if you spend your whole life loving, you WILL live forever,” he said.
The release also confirmed that Dolly Day will become an annual event at Friends in Low Places, which means this is not a one-time tribute. Every September 25 from here forward, one of the busiest bars in Nashville will work a full day and keep none of it.
Brooks and Parton Shared a Stage Three Years Ago
Garth Brooks is not honoring a legend he admired from a distance.
He and Dolly Parton co-hosted the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards together on May 11, 2023, at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. The two of them ran the show side by side, trading lines and carrying a three-hour broadcast.
Anyone who watched that night saw two people who clearly enjoyed each other. Three years later, he is giving away a day of revenue in her name.
Half the Country Landed on the Same Date
Friends in Low Places joined a wave that was already building.
For You
California moved fastest. Senate Bill 931, authored by Republican Senator Shannon Grove of Bakersfield and joint-authored by Democrat Senator John Laird of Santa Cruz, passed on September 1 and heads to Governor Gavin Newsom, who is expected to sign it.
“Dolly Parton has a remarkable ability to bring people together, and her heart for children and literacy is one of the greatest parts of her legacy,” Grove said.
Laird pointed to her history in his part of the state, from sold-out crowds at the Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles to her years at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.
A Republican and a Democrat co-authored a bill together, and it passed without a fight. She was still bringing people together a week after she was gone.
In Tennessee, State Senator Jessie Seal announced on August 26 that he will introduce legislation to designate September 25 as an official “9 to 5 Day.” That bill gets taken up when the session opens on January 12, 2027. Tennessee already recognizes January 19, her birthday, as Dolly Parton Day.
New York Senate Bill S10690 went to the Rules Committee on August 31. Pennsylvania Representative Ben Waxman is circulating a co-sponsorship memo for a similar resolution. Montgomery County, Texas, issued a proclamation, and New Orleans is planning its own 9/25 celebration.
Every Dollar Goes Where She Would Have Sent It
Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 because her father could not read or write, and she never stopped carrying that with her.
It began in Sevier County, the mountain community that raised her, and now mails millions of free books to children across five countries. Every enrolled child receives one in the mail each month from birth until they start kindergarten.
Her vision statement on the program’s website still reads in her own voice. “When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams.”
September 25 falls one month to the day after she died.
On that Friday, tourists on Lower Broadway will wander into a honky-tonk named after a Garth Brooks song, order a beer, and put a book in the hands of a child they will never meet. Most of them will have no idea that is what they did.
Dolly Parton spent eighty years making it easy for people to be generous without noticing.
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