Taylor Swift may be known for penning some biting breakup songs, but she's all heart.
The 24-year-old country singer, who has topped DoSomething.org's most charitable celebrities list for the last two years, was again spreading her generosity this week. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia announced that the Pennsylvania native donated $50,000 to the facility for music-themed initiatives — including a music studio on wheels — that teens in treatment at CHOP's Cancer Center can utilize.
The monetary donation alone deserves accolades, but, once again, Swift also proved to be generous with her time. The Grammy winner, who's currently on tour in Asia, also visited several of the patients at CHOP. Photos from her hospital visit show the star wearing her signature red lipstick and meeting with a few of the teens. In one shot, she was leaning sweetly touching heads with a young woman and another was of Swift at the bedside of another girl, signing an autograph.
Swift seems to go out of her way to make these types of connections. While in New York in March, she made a surprise visit to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, spending five hours hanging out with young patients. The mother of Shelby Huff, who was recovering from a bone marrow transplant, wrote on Facebook about the star's exchange with her daughter, saying, "Taylor Swift is a class act all around. She was so sweet, compassionate, asked US questions, got on Skype with my other daughter, stayed in our room and talked with us and was completely down to earth."
Last year, Swift also dropped in at Omaha's Children's Hospital & Medical Center in Nebraska to visit Lauren Hacker, a 10-year-old with acute myelocytic leukemia. The girl and her loved ones had made a YouTube video set to Swift's "You Belong With Me" to urge the star to acknowledge her young, ailing fan. And acknowledge Swift did. She spent an hour hanging out with the girl and her family.
When non-profit DoSomething.org released its year-end roundup of the Top 20 Celebs Gone Good in December, Swift topped the list based on her $100,000 donation to the Nashville Symphony (on her 24th birthday) and headlining Prince William and Kate's Winter Whites Gala to raise money for Centerpoint, a homeless youth organization in England.
In 2012, Swift donated a whopping $4 million to the Country Hall of Fame Museum for the Taylor Swift Education Center, which opened late last year. She was on hand at the ribbon cutting at the center, which includes three classrooms, a hands-on instrument room, and a children's exhibit gallery for interactive exhibits, all spread over two floors. The same year, she was also the youngest person ever to receive the Ripple of Hope Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center, which was given for her charity work with children who have cancer.
So while Swift may be best known for those breakup songs and famous boyfriends, she is quietly building an even bigger legacy.
Source
