Teen pop icon Justin Bieber performed at a private Christmas concert Friday for a Las Vegas elementary school known for providing needy students’ families with food, clothes, money for utility bills — and just about everything in between.
The 17-year-old star’s concert, featuring songs from his holiday album “Under the Mistletoe,” came along with a $100,000 donation to Whitney Elementary School, which has garnered publicity for providing needy students’ families with food, clothes, money for utility bills — and just about everything in between.
It was clear Friday that the mid-December chill wasn’t cooling down Bieber fever. Second-grader A’mya Saulsberry and third-grader Mia Godinez were wearing glittery hair bows and T-shirts emblazoned with teen pop icon’s face as they walked with their grandma to school.
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“When he noticed how kind we were and how gentle we were, he wanted to come,” Godinez explained, as a Justin ballad fit for a sixth-grade slow dance piped from campus loudspeakers.
After Justin announced on a Nov. 1 episode of “The Ellen Degeneres Show” that he would visit to perform songs from his album “Under the Mistletoe,” the hundreds of students watching the taping from their Las Vegas school erupted into screams and cheers, and even tears of joy.
“For the kids, it shows that someone loves them and cares about them to follow up,” principal Sherrie Gahn told the Las Vegas Sun after the taping. “When you live in an existence where everything seems so hopeless, it’s an amazing gift they will never forget. It’s beyond their wildest dreams.”
Whitney Elementary was first featured on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in September. The episode highlighted how the school provides a food pantry, clothes closet, free haircuts and literacy training for students’ families.
Gahn said more than 85 percent of the school’s 600-plus students receive free or reduced lunches. The school also has one of the highest homeless student populations in Nevada’s Clark County School District.
Gahn told “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” she made a pact with families after she arrived about eight years ago. “I’ll pay your electrical bill, your utilities, I’ll give you food or clothes, whatever you need, as long as you give me your child and then help raise that child as a person of character,” she said.
Families at the school told the show Gahn has stayed true to her promise. Gahn said most of the donations come from individuals or businesses, and she said the show has brought an outpouring of support. Justin’s gift matches a $100,000 donation from Target that was announced on the September episode.
“My biggest motivator for the kids and the thought and hope that they don’t have to live in this existence when they grow up — that they break the cycle,” Gahn said.
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