Some people have good hearts from the start. This has been proven time and again, generation after generation.
Cayden Taipalus, an 8-year-old student at Challenger Elementary in Howell, Michigan, is a good example of this.
When he saw his friend get a cheese sandwich instead of a hot meal because he didn’t have enough money in his account, the kid knew he had to do something.
Taipalus didn’t just let it go, though. He decided to do something about it himself. Since then, the response online has shown that it was a great move…
When Cayden Taipalus saw his friend get a cheese sandwich instead of a hot meal for lunch, he felt compelled to do something. Amber Melke-Peters, his mother, said that when he got home that day, he was so upset about what had happened that he asked her what he could do to stop it from happening again.
He started a fundraising website called “Pay It Forward: No Kid Goes Hungry” with her help.
Once the site was up and running, Cayden asked his friends, family, neighbors, and others to help him raise money to pay off his friend’s lunch debts.
That wasn’t all, though. The 8-year-old also started recycling to make money on his own, and he asked the lunch ladies to put the money he made into the accounts of kids who needed money.
Since Cayden started his project, he has raised almost $7,000 to buy lunch for more than 300 students. He wants to keep working so that no child ever has to go to school without a hot lunch.
His mother told ABC News, “I am so very proud of my son. He is only 8, so the fact that he can understand what is going on is just amazing to me. He has a good heart.”
What started as a little flutter in Cayden’s stomach turned into a project that could make sure many kids have a hot lunch and also shows how caring a boy so young can be.