NEW ORLEANS (KGO) -- High school graduation is exciting enough. But throw in a surprise celebrity speaker, and you have commencement gold!
"Do not pick your nose in public," is just one piece of advice that actress Sandra Bullock gave the class of 2014 at Warren Easton High in New Orleans. It's the same advice she gives her 4-year-old son.
The 198 graduates didn't see the superstar smiling as she hid on the sidelines. They went wild when she took the stage.
"They're infectious, they inspire me, they make me try to get off my butt and do better, I love them," said Bullock of the students.
The actress offered the graduates some serious advice, too.
"Stop being so scared of the unknown," she said. "Because anything I worried about didn't happen."
"Her words just sank, they sunk in, and after she finished speaking, I just started crying," said graduate Tatiana Collins.
The movie star adopted Warren Easton High School after Hurricane Katrina. Since then, she has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the school in the city she loves.
"I don't think you can put it into words," she said. "It's like a spice, it just, it only exists here, and I've been taking and taking, and when everything happened with Katrina, that's when you realize you have to put back."
Since 2006, her donations have helped buy band uniforms, lockers, football equipment, a campus health clinic, and a new auditorium.