Eight-year-old Illinois boy gives donates $1,000 prize to sick 2-year-old neighbour

When Wyatt Erber, 8, decided to compete in a neighbourhood scavenger hunt, he told his mother he would compete for his 2-year-old neighbour, Cara Kielty, who had been diagnosed with leukaemia a few months ago.

True to his word, upon winning the First Clover Leaf Bank's Scavenger Hunt, he immediately offered the $1,000 prize to the Kielty family.

"I didn't know what I would do with $1,000," Wyatt told the Edwardsville, Illinois' newspaper the Telegraph. "But I knew what (the Kieltys) could do with it. I knew they weren't getting a lot of work done, because they were taking care of Cara all the time."

The Kieltys were initially hesitant to take the money from the young boy, but Wyatt insisted that he wanted "to pay for some of Cara's chemotherapy."

"Noelle [Wyatt's mother' said we didn't have a choice in this," said Cara's mother, Trish Kielty, wiping away a tear. "I love that kid dearly."

Oncologists have given Cara an "amazing and wonderful" cure rate of 90 to 93 per cent, the Kieltys say.

This isn't Wyatt's first generous move to help a child with cancer. Two years ago, he participated in a bake sale to help raise money for paediatric cancer research.

"Wyatt's big heart and sense of caring is beyond his years," Rachel Case, the marketing specialist at the bank in charge of the scavenger hunt told the Telegraph. "We want to recognize Wyatt for the hometown hero that he is. I just get goose bumps thinking about what he did."