Teen idol Justin Bieber to serenade students

Canadian teen heartthrob Justin Bieber, will make a special appearance at Long Beach Middle School after students collected 27,000 pounds of food for a contest sponsored by local radio station 92.3 Now FM.

As part of an annual tradition, the school’s Culture Club and Peace Club organized a school-wide drive to collect food for local food pantries. This year, however, an interesting twist was added to the drive, when eighth-grader Maria Quintero heard about a contest sponsored by the radio station, asking for schools in the tri-state area to collect nonperishable food. The school that collected the most food would win a private concert by teen idol Bieber. Maria and her fellow fans approached Principal Audrey Goropeuschek, offering to fill out the paperwork to enter the contest.

“The Thanksgiving Food Drive has always been an important community service project at the middle school,” said Goropeuschek. “It seemed like a great idea for our Justin Bieber fans to join forces with the Peace Club and Culture Club to make our food drive bigger than ever.”

After getting the go-ahead from their principal, students sprang into action. They made more than 100 signs, stood for hours on the weekends outside local markets asking shoppers to donate food, spent their allowance money on canned food, raided their parents’ pantries, and carried backpacks full of donations to school each day.

They amassed an astounding 33,250 pounds of food, 27,000 pounds of which counted toward their official total. They out-collected all other school involved throughout the tri-state area, making them the official winners of the contest. To reward them for their extraordinary efforts, Justin Bieber will come to their school in February to stage a private concert. Through the efforts of LBMS and other participating schools in the tri-state area, the radio station gathered over 150,000 pounds of food.

“I was one of the students who helped collect food at local supermarkets,” said eighth grader Jackie Gropper. “We gave up our weekends to make posters, asking everyone we could think of to help. It was great to win, but also great to know we were helping others.”

With the help of Island Harvest, the food is being distributed to the food pantry at the St. Mary of the Isle Community Center in Long Beach and to the Food and Friendship INN of Long Beach, directly aiding Long Beach residents who find themselves in need.

“We received two vans full of food,” said Amy Johnson, president of the steering committee of the Food and Friendship INN of Long Beach. “The children did a phenomenal job. We are so grateful.”

Blanca Cales, outreach director at St. Mary’s said, “Because of the goodwill of these students and their teachers, parents and friends, many families experienced a happier, more fulfilling holiday season and New Year.”