Taylor Elementary School third-grader Raylen Poe is battling cancer and undergoing chemo treatments at Cincinnati Children's.
"It just breaks your heart to think that someone that age has to go through it," a teacher at Poe's school, Kayla Hamilton, said.
To support him and his family, Hamilton and several others at the school helped organize a fundraiser called Penny Wars.
In total, classmates collected about $7,825 through Penny Wars. T-shirt sales raised $1,710 and a donor wrote a check for $465. That adds up to $10,000.
"We were all just like, honestly completely shocked," Hamilton said. "I know that's what people say but there's no other way to describe it. It was amazing, simply amazing."
She presented the money to Raylen and his mom Tuesday, showing them that the community has their back.
"That's the blessing of small towns," she said. "You know everybody. Everybody wants to help."
