In an old fire truck garage-turned transitional youth homeless shelter in Toronto’s southwest end, a Lady in white is helping to hand out some green.

“When I heard about Eva’s Phoenix, I was really excited because this is the kind of place I believe in,” she says, wearing the white dress she designed herself with pointed white geometric shapes protruding from her waist, thighs and right shoulder. “It’s not just about a place to stay. It’s about a place to be inspired, grow, feel good about yourself and change.”

She’s the platinum-haired performer called Lady GaGa, famous for her club-pop music prose in songs like Just Dance and Poker Face. On behalf of RE*Generation, a Virgin Mobile movement dedicated to helping at-risk and homeless youth, she helped present the shelter with a $100,000 cheque before playing a charity show at Circa.

Lady GaGa, 22, has been giving back since she was in school at Manhattan’s Convent of the Sacred Heart. The nun-run school, also attended by Paris and Nicky Hilton, is where GaGa says she learned selflessness she assures will always play a part in her career. “We did a lot of charity work and that was sort of ingrained in my bones as a young person.”

In fact, without embracing such charitable causes, Lady Gaga says her stage shows and synth songs are pointless. “I can write music all day about celebrities and fame and money, but none of that really matters if I can’t give back to young people,” she says.

Lady GaGa may also be provoking significant change on the popular music front, according to some critics who tout her as paving pop’s future. But while others criticize her, Gaga knows her goal.

“From their mouths to God’s ears, I hope I am the future of pop music, only because my intentions are good,” she says. “I want to do great things for other people. If that means I’m the future, then there should be more of me.”