9-year-old Texas girls ‘pay it forward’ to help former teacher

Last week, a Texas teacher discovered that two of her former students were raising money to help her family.

Kassidy Thomson and Lauren Edington, both 9 years old, have been collecting and selling pecans to raise enough money to cook a dinner for a friend who had recently been diagnosed with lymphoma.

Their goal: $20.

With 50 orders to fill, they raised much more than that. One woman bought a bag and donated $50.

When Christina Puente learned on Facebook that her former students from Taft Elementary School were raising money for a good cause, she promptly bought a bag and donated $20.

"I started reading and felt bad that somebody else was diagnosed. I was wondering what they were going through," Puente, whose husband, Jesus, was diagnosed with lymphoma in May, told the Beaumont Enterprise.

It wasn't until Puente followed a series of links on Facebook that she discovered the pecan fundraiser wasn't for a stranger — it was for her and her husband.

"I saw it posted on a friends Facebook page and found out later it was for us," Christina Puente told the Port Arthur News. "It touched our hearts."

Jesus Puente completed his final round of chemotherapy on Monday in Houston. He is scheduled to visit his doctor again in three weeks when, hopefully, he will be declared cancer-free.

"These are my kids," Christina Puente said of the touching donation. "For them to choose to do this for us is priceless."