by Staten Island Advance
Jennifer Lopez poses with, from left, Sonny Singh, Anthony DeRosa and Matthew Alonso at PS 37 in Great Kills.A group of eight students from PS 37 in Staten Island's Great Kills neighborhood, had a very special guest in attendance for their graduation today:
Jennifer Lopez.
The singer/actress visited the facility, a school for autistic children, to see the group of 10-and-11-year-olds perform her song "Let's Get Loud" at their graduation ceremony.
The class was first introduced to Lopez's music a few months ago when they had to choose a song to dance to at graduation. Teacher Kathy Amati and paraprofessional Rose Mondella showed the students the "Let's Get Loud" video as a suggestion, and the class of eight boys loved it. They wanted to watch it every day and learned all of the lyrics and dance moves from the video.
"The kids don't even really understand how famous she is," said Ms. Amati. "They just really like her singing and dancing."
After observing the boys' enthusiasm, Ms. Amati and Ms. Mondella decided to have the children write letters to Lopez, which were sent to her fan clubs. While their teachers were only hoping for a few pictures or maybe even an autograph, the students always expected more.
"From the minute we wrote the letters, they just automatically thought she would come," Ms. Amati said.
Finally, a response from the singer came yesterday afternoon when one of her representatives called the school wanting to know the time of the graduation ceremony because Lopez wanted to attend.
-- Contributed by Greg Alvarez
