Life

Kids Give Senior Trip Money To Teacher With Cancer

Lately I've been thinking kind of a lot about how much promposals cost and why teens are so interested in giving and/or receiving them. I mean, I know as moody as I was as a teen, I still super appreciated adoring attention so I imagine access to that now with such spectacular incentive as possibly going viral is pretty appealing. But what's better is when teens take the platform and capital to do something truly generous, like how these teens donated money from their senior trip to pay for their principal's cancer treatment.

New Hampshire principal, Courtney Vashaw, learned not even a month ago that a very rare type of cancer was growing in her soft tissue. Vashaw has been with the combination middle and high school for seven years now. A self-identified private person, Vashaw says she had to reveal the news to her students last week to explain any upcoming and possibly extended absences. Tuesday morning, her high school senior class bestowed the most thoughtful, noble gift upon their beloved principal. They gave Vashaw almost $8000—funds originally allocated to fund the big, overnight senior trip. Students said she could use the money to pay for her expensive chemotherapy treatments.

"She's just very caring, very selfless, and we wanted to be selfless, too," student Ian Baker said. That's one pretty convincing way to show it. See her face as they reveal their contribution:

Apparently the whole ordeal came as quite the surprise to Vashaw, who arrived to the gathering under the pretense that it was just some routine senior meeting. Upon arrival, she learned the whole senior class unanimously decided to funnel the funds to Vashaw's cause instead of the previously planned senior trip. Look at this cuddle puddle:

"I feel like this has been a beautiful experience as an educator," Vashaw said. "You work so hard to try and help cultivate not only academically astute young people but kids who care. I am just so impressed and so proud of these kids for being the embodiment of that." No kidding. See the video reveal in full below:

It's not like this class was forgoing the opportunity to sneak vodka into their Mountain Dew bottles at Universal Studios (or maybe that's a specifically Floridian form of teenage torture). The plan entailed an overnight stay at an upstate New York ranch. Profile Junior-Senior High School's Class of 2015 will still have a trip, but it'll be much smaller scale and will include overnight accommodations. Students say this won't be the last organized effort to benefit Vashaw's treatment expenses.

Images: Getty Images; YouTube(3)