Online trolls can be so mean, but Taylor Swift is doing something to counter them. The pop superstar who wrote the Mean song against bullies is donating money and concert tickets to a Boston school for the deaf victimized by online pranksters.
According
to the Associated Press, VH1's Save the Music program sponsored an
online contest among schools and colleges for an on-campus concert by
Swift at the winning school. But Horace Mann School for the Deaf in
Boston was disqualified because many of the votes were from jokers who
thought it would be funny for a school for non-hearing students to win a
concert.
But that wasn't the end of it. Instead, every student
at the K-12 school will receive a ticket to Swift's next local concert.
She and the contest sponsors also donated $50,000 to the school, and
Save the Music donated $10,000 in musical instruments.
"Any kind
of specific instrument that can be purchased to bring music alive for
these students will go a long way," says Boston Public Schools spokesman
Matt Wilder.
Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., won the
contest for the on-campus concert and a $10,000 grant to its music
department. Plus, four other schools also received grants: Seton High
School in Cincinnati; Terra Environmental Research Institute in Miami;
Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif.; and California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
Swift is in the midst of promoting her fourth record, Red, due out Oct. 22. She's already sold more than 22 million records, and her last one, Speak Now, sold more than a million its first week out.
USA Today