Richmond's Renzey Rozman couldn’t be any cuter if she tried.
A diehard Katy Perry fan, eight-year-old Renzey had the chance to see her idol in the flesh at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night.
Instead, the Grade 3 Westwind elementary student asked her mom, Erin, to hand over the $250 it would cost for a ticket to the Richmond Teachers’ Association hardship fund.
“I can see Katy Perry anytime, but my teachers need me today,” Renzey told the Richmond News on Wednesday, just a few hours before the second of Perry’s Vancouver concerts.
The News went online the same day with Renzey’s story, with an appeal for someone to email her mom if they had a spare couple of tickets. The News also tweeted the appeal direct to Perry.
At 7 p.m., an email landed in Erin’s inbox from Perry’s manager, saying he’d heard of Renzey’s selfless gesture, adding that “Katy would like to offer you free tickets for tonight’s concert.”
“I was at a work meeting in Burnaby, but I called Renzey right away and she squealed down the phone,” Erin told the News on Thursday morning.
“My husband had to drive her to Burnaby and then we dashed to the show and got there about 8:45 p.m. Even the person at the will-call window knew who Renzey was.”
Perry hit the stage just after 9 p.m. and Renzey was in absolute awe, according to her mom.
Earlier the same day, Renzey was asked how big a Perry fan she was, saying “I don’t have posters of her on the wall and I don’t have all her songs yet, but I wish I did.”
Renzey turned up late Tuesday on the picket line outside her school to hand the cheque over to the striking teachers.
She came armed with a sign, which simply read, “my teachers matter more than a Katy Perry concert.”
Westwind’s teacher/librarian Phyllis Haley was thrilled when she heard of Renzey’s gesture.
“She’s an amazing little girl and we’re all so grateful,” said Haley, who, along with her Westwind colleagues, thanked Renzey in person on the picket line Wednesday afternoon.
Referring to the second Katy Perry concert on Wednesday night, Haley said, “I tried to see if radio stations or promoters had two tickets they could donate to Renzey, but I was out of luck.”
Not knowing that Perry’s tour manager had emailed the family on Wednesday evening, Haley had also emailed the Ellen DeGeneres Show in a bid to get some last-minute tickets.
Proud mom Erin said she’d tried in vain to get two tickets when they first went on sale.
“I forgot about it until the other day and went on Craigslist, but the cheapest were $250,” added Rozman, who’s the president of the Douglas College Faculty Association.
“I said to Renzey, ‘do you still want to go?’ She asked how much the tickets were before (suggesting we give) the $250 to the teachers instead and she would make a card to go with it.”
