Justin Bieber gave a special performance at Marcus Whitman High School in Rushville in March for the winners of the Hillside Special Santas 98PXY Penny Challenge. How did Hillside get this teen phenom to come to Rochester? With a lot of help from our friends.

About five years ago 98PXY FM wanted to help raise money for teens served by Hillside Special Santas. They suggested asking the high school kids to compete in a Penny Challenge. The high school that collected the most pennies would win a concert at their high school by a well known performer. We loved the idea – and so did high school students throughout the Rochester area.

Enthusiasm has grown over the years as Teddy Geiger, Donny Clang, and other big names have given high school kids incentive to almost eliminate pennies from circulation in the greater Rochester area during the three-week challenge. When Justin Bieber agreed to give this year’s prize concert a year ago, he was a young star on the rise. By the time of the concert date, he had become a superstar. In fact, the week of the concert, 16-year-old Justin was featured on the cover of People magazine and performed on Saturday Night Live. You can imagine how excited the 98PXY Penny Challenge winners were to have Justin perform at their school. 

The Marcus Whitman High School students worked hard to earn the concert by raising $3,000 in pennies. Altogether the participating high schools raised $16,000 to help Hillside Special Santas provide gifts for teens in our care. 

What makes this a really nice story is the fact that the winning students were very happy to have us at the concert and wanted to know about the teens they had helped through their efforts. They also invited the second place winners, Honeoye Falls-Lima High School, to attend the concert.

These are great kids. They are our future generation and we are in good hands. We give them a big hand for caring and sharing. Many thanks to all.