

Codi Wilson, CP24.com





Ahead of her daughter’s show at the Air Canada Centre tonight, Lady Gaga’s mom Cynthia Germanotta made a surprise visit to the Yonge Street Mission’s Evergreen Centre downtown to meet with homeless youth.

Germanotta, who is president and co-founder of the Born This Way Foundation, toured the Toronto youth homeless shelter along with Rossann Williams, the president of Starbucks Canada.

“We are touring this incredible facility, which is a drop-in centre for homeless youth from all over Canada. We are serving them lunch. We are seeing the amazing facilities that they have that include not only creative arts but also focusing on their mental health and wellness,” Germanotta said, noting that the mental health of young people is “very important” to the foundation she and her daughter created in 2012.

She added that she is proud of her daughter opening up about her own struggles with mental health.

Germanotta said at first it bothered her that her daughter would share personal stories on stage with fans but she said she later learned why it was important.

“What I realized is she was healing and it was helping other young people heal and gain strength and hope, realizing that if she did it, perhaps they could do it. So as we travelled the world, we saw many similar stories of very similar struggles to my daughter and young people wanted to get involved…. That really gave birth to the foundation of wanting to really help these young people and inspire them.”

Creating more positive environments for youth is also something the foundation lists as an important goal.

“We have sourced and trained 50 youth reporters around the country to identify and report on acts of kindness in their communities,” Germanotta said.

“Many of the stories about young people today happen to focus on negative issues when we know in fact this is a generation of young people that are very smart and creative and they want to do good.”

Germanotta said she plans to be among the thousands of fans watching tonight when Lady Gaga takes the stage in Toronto.