This boy is just 10 years old, but he has already made a name for himself for his extraordinary display of kindness and compassion for his fellow schoolchildren.
Meet Cayden Taipalus, from Howell, Michigan, an elementary school student who is embarking on a mission to end child hunger, CBN News reported.
Cayden has raised more than $40,000 to date through the Fundrazr website to help pay off the cost of low-income children's lunch.
The idea lit up in Cayden's mind two years ago when a friend was denied a hot lunch because his lunch account at Challenger Elementary School was found delinquent.
Cayden felt bad when instead of a hot lunch, his friend was handed a cold cheese sandwich.
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On returning home that day, the boy asked his mother what he could do to help his friend so that what happened at school would never be repeated again.
His mother, Amber Peters, then suggested that they could start a fundraiser called "Pay It Forward: No Kids Goes Hungry."
The mother-and-son team then launched the project. In the first two weeks of the campaign, Peters told ABC News that they were able to raise $7,000—enough to provide hot lunches for more than 300 students.
Peters said her son called family, friends and neighbours to raise money to pay off low-income kids' delinquent lunch accounts at school. "He not only paid off the accounts but added money to them so the child had no future worries about lunches," she said in her posted message at fundrazr.com.
"I am so very proud of my son," Peters told ABC News in 2014. "He is only 8 years old and to grasp the concept around this is just amazing in my eyes. He has a heart of gold."
She said with the "wonderful" donation response, Cayden now wants to help students from other elementary schools in the entire Livingston County in Michigan.
"Doing something little can turn into something big and go a long way. Paying it forward is a big deal," Peters said.
School officials have joined the campaign and are now offering an alternative lunch options for kids who can't afford hot lunch.
"What Cayden is doing is very generous and it shows how caring all of our students are," said Thomas Gould, director of public relations for Howell Public Schools. "It's also important to know that all of our kids are offered lunch no matter what."
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