R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo surprised students and faculty members at the M. Agnes Jones Elementary School in Atlanta when he presented music director Arthur McClenton and his band students with a novelty size $30,000 check for instruments.

Ne-Yo's gift to the deserving students was courtesy of VH1's Save The Music Foundation, which works to "restore instrumental music education programs" in public schools across the country, and a generous anonymous donor.

"Music is not what I do, it's who I am," Ne-Yo told the students. "If you cut off my arm right now a song would probably fall out...And I know it may be cliche, but these kids are our future. And we are going to have some very smart, but very boring, very bland kids if we don't keep programs like these in the schools." Ne-Yo, a VH1 Save The Music ambassador, was joined by his mother and older sister, to whom the Grammy-winning singer credits for helping him "fall in love with music."

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