UPDATED Wednesday, October 10: Powell River’s social media campaign to have Justin Bieber meet with Derek Russell before tonight’s concert at Rogers Arena has been a success.
Derek’s mother Allison Metzner received the call at noon today from Bieber’s assistant to let her know that the 10-minute meet and greet would happen before the concert tonight.
“Derek’s really excited,” said Allison. “It’s amazing.”
It’s a feel-good story that has struck a chord with people all over and set social and traditional media abuzz.
Last Wednesday, October 3, Paige Metzner posted a note on Justin Bieber’s Facebook page telling him about her brother Derek Russell. She asked Bieber if he could take some time out to meet Derek after his show at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on Wednesday, October 10.
Derek is a 14-year-old with a history of health problems. He was born with Down’s syndrome and congenital heart disease and had his first open heart surgery when he was only seven days old.
“We went to Vancouver to see the cardiologist on Monday and found out that he had to have another open heart surgery in another six to eight weeks, which was quite a bit sooner than we expected,” said Allison Metzner, Derek’s mother. “We were already going to the concert, and we thought wouldn’t it be neat if we could give him something positive with this surgery coming up—maybe he could meet Justin Bieber.” Bieber has a history of meeting with sick children in Canada and around the world.
Whenever her son has the opportunity to listen to music he always listens to Bieber, said Allison.
That Facebook post set off a cascade of support from friends and family and countless “beliebers,” a term coined for Bieber fans.
“Over 1,300 likes on the original post plus countless other likes, comments, posts, tweets, Instagram photos in attempt to get Derek to meet Justin Bieber,” Paige wrote on her Facebook page. “It is incredible how much has come of this in such a little amount of time. Please keep it going though; just think, if we have had this much attention from it in under a day, how much we will get in a week.”
Within 48 hours of the Facebook post The Province newspaper had published a story about Derek, and Global TV ran the story on its website. Both Facebook and Twitter had thousands of people posting support for Derek. Fans began posting the request to the Twitter hashtag #DerekVanOctober10 and have sent messages to Bieber’s girlfriend, actress Selena Gomez, and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
Since then the story of Derek wishing to meet Bieber has gone viral.
“It completely exploded,” said Allison. “A lot of kids at Brooks [Secondary School] love him. Both Paige and Derek have a lot of friends who have picked up on this. It’s amazing.”
Allison said she likes to think that he’ll get the chance to meet Bieber because she knows how much it will mean to her son. The family hasn’t heard anything yet, so they are waiting patiently to see if Bieber will agree to the meeting. Regardless though, Allison said, they are going to go to the concert and Derek will have a chance to hear his favourite singer live and that will make him happy too.
