Bieber electrifies elementary school with private concert
Jolie Leach is in fifth grade, but she doesn’t plan on washing her right hand ever again.
"Never. Not in my whole life," the 11-year-old declared, waving to show off just where pop singer Justin Bieber gave her a high-five.
The young star performed a private concert and donated $100,000 to Whitney Elementary School on Friday, a gift he announced for the at-risk school in late October.
"He kept his promise," giddy girls said as they emerged from the show, clutching presents the Biebs gave them from a truckload of toys he also brought along.
"He said, ‘There you go, sweetie,’" a blushing 8-year-old Karlie Scales recalled. The singer gave her a playful pup named Cookie, a toy that mimics the sounds and actions of a dog.
The gifts and concert were particularly special for Whitney Elementary, a school near Tropicana Avenue and Boulder Highway with a high number of students with no permanent place to live. Many of the 650 students are from low-income families who cannot afford rent or winter coats let alone Christmas presents.
It’s a scene Bieber can relate to, so he wanted to help, Whitney Principal Sherrie Gahn said, adding that he grew up in a similar situation in a family that sometimes had to rely on a food bank.
Bieber had promised to perform and donate to the school during a taping of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" a month after the school was featured by the talk show host. Bieber’s concert will be shown on a future episode.
The show highlighted Gahn’s mission to keep the kids in school, even if that means paying their bills so their families don’t have to move.
Since the show, donations have poured in. Gahn estimates the school received about $1 million worth of cash and material donations, including a computer lab and a new library, in the past month alone.
Bieber’s donation and concert came on the last day of school before break, the perfect start to the holiday season.
"I cried the whole way through," Gahn said, describing the day of excitement for her students — many of them in Bieber shirts — as the star visited their classrooms and performed four acoustic songs.
Outside the school, about 100 teenage girls lined the sidewalk hoping to catch a glimpse to cure their own Bieber fever.
Natalie Garcia, 17, scored an autograph from the star. She planned to hang it above her bed among pictures of the blond-haired heartthrob.
The gaggle of screaming teenage girls rushed at him though, cutting his appearance for the onlookers a bit short and leaving 4-year-old Jasmine Serrano unable to deliver an invitation to her birthday party to him.
But the Biebs spent plenty of time with the elementary students he had planned to see, telling them that the only other performance he gave this week was for President Barack Obama.
Rosemarie and Lily Triplett, 6 and 5, said Bieber even asked the group to sing and dance along to hit "Baby."
Third-grader Karlie said she would remember the day even when she is in heaven before correcting herself to say that she was already there.
"For these kids who are so used to not having anything of their own or always having things taken away, the Ellen show and Justin Bieber gave them something very special," Gahn said. "They gave them memories that no one can ever take."
Contact Jessica Fryman at jfryman@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0264.
