Students donate prom money to help teacher battling cancer

Students from The Pine Ridge High School have decided that having the perfect prom night isn’t the most important thing for them this year.

 

The school’s prom committee plan to donate a large amount of their funds to help maths teacher Charles Lundell, who has cancer.

 

“We all wanted to help Mr. Lundell out,” committee president Katie Buday, 17, told TODAY.com. “We have more than enough money for prom so we thought we could help him in his time of need.”

 

The vice president of the committee added: “Mr. Lundell really needs it right now. Prom is just prom.”

 

The members of the committee have enough to cover the basic costs of the dance (roughly $13,000), but they plan to donate all the funds raised beyond the essential costs.

 

Mr. Lundell was moved by their big decision and says he didn’t expect such a loving gesture from his students:

 

“I’m very humbled because I do my job and I don’t know that I have an effect,” Lundell told TODAY.com, on the brink of shedding tears. “It’s amazing. It’s almost surreal.”

 

He has been a teacher in the secondary school since it opened 20 years ago, so it’s no surprise that he formed such an emotional bond with some of the students.

 

Two years ago, he bet the cancer in his tonsils. But now, Mr. Lundell has  brain, lung and liver cancer and is fighting for his life.

 

“I’m gonna kick this cancer’s butt,” he told TODAY.com. “It’s not about me. It’s about living for them.”