Lorena Blas, USA TODAY
Superstar Rihanna played Santa's helper this weekend with a big gift to a hospital in Barbados.

The 24-year-old singer's foundation donated $3.5 million in Barbadian dollars, or about $1.75 million U.S. dollars, to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown for equipment to be used at the Clara Braithwaite Centre for Oncology and Nuclear Medicine. Braithwaite is Rihanna's grandmother, who died in June.

Rihanna visited the center on Saturday with her mother, Monica Fenty, and her grandfather, Lionel Braithwaite. Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation is named for her grandparents.

The Barbados Advocate reports Rihanna said that the donation was her way of giving back to the country of her birth.

"I believe that this will have a huge impact on the people of Barbados. This was all done in effort to save lives or at least extend it and I thank you all for being a part of it," she said, according to the Advocate.