Southeast High Chorus Serenades Sara Bareilles

Students of the Southeast High School sang Sara Bareilles a love song after she handed the music director a $10,000 check for the school's music education program.

Of course it wasn't any love song. It was THE "Love Song." Written and performed by Bareilles it put the singer-songwriter on the charts.

Bareilles who has played at venues around the world was at Southeast, not to perform, but to deliver that check on behalf of Jillian Cupps, an Orlando resident and Southeast alumna who won 8^th Continent Soymilk’s “Nice Job, Mom: We Rock” contest. The contest was designed to showcase moms who emphasize health and harmony in their homes.

Cupps secret is she's not a mom. Instead she recently became an aunt for the first time. Her new niece is now six months old. But the contest didn't require that the winners be moms, only that they had good ideas for moms. So Cupps won concert tickets to see Bareilles in Orlando and to have her deliver a $10,000 check to any music education program in the country. Cupps decided that there was no better place than Southeast, where she spent a year in the band her freshman year.

Cupps, who is a huge Bareilles fan, found the contest on the singer's facebook page and decided to enter. She was shocked when she won: "I never win anything," she said.

When the school heard they were getting $10,000 for music education, they also weren't sure whether to believe the news but then Wendell Butler, an assistant principal who graduated from Southeast a year ahead of Cupps, recognized her name and knew that this was no joke.

The music students really showed thier appreciation, cheering for Cupps nearly as loudly as they cheered for the talented singer-songwriter there to offically deliver the check.

It was the first of five checks she was scheduled to deliver to high schools around the country and she said, "If every one goes like this, this is my new favorite thing to do."

Bareilles took time to do student interviews, pose for hundreds of photos and then to answer questions from the media and from the Southeast students.She gave them tips for making their music work: "Be vulnerable and share what's honest, support each other in coming together and taking risks."

She told them about how she participated in the high school music programs where she grew up. She was in music productions at the high school and in two jazz choirs. The music education programs made her feel safe and encouraged her to perform.

"It drives me crazy that music fund were cut at schools across the country," she told the audience. "I wish we could do this for every single school in the United States."

She also asked the students what they were studying and about the music programs at Southeast. The school plans to spend the $10,000 to repair some instruments and to buy sheet music for starters, said the school's principal, Catherine Smith.