Some Arcadia High School students in Phoenix, Arizona, aren’t just focused on learning; they have also raised nearly $10,000 for their teacher’s wife, per Fox News.
They created a Go Fund Me account and set to work raising funds to help their 62-year-old government and economics teacher, Clayton Guy, after it was determined that his wife, Angel, would need heart surgery.
Guy had been taking time off to help his wife go to doctor’s appointments and have tests after she experienced chest pains in the spring.
Then, doctors determined she would need open heart surgery to remove a blockage.
Guy said, “So we’d take days off, meet surgeons — and then finally I had to tell students what was going on.”
“I was missing days and missing time, and on March 11, we did the surgery. Then I had to be out from that day on, because I was her nurse and the person who would give her the pills and take care of her and be at the hospital,” he added.
His students noticed a change in him throughout this period.
Parker Bond, a recent graduate from the school, was in Guy’s class and stated, “Mr. Guy always has a lot of energy.”
“He tries to include everybody in the class, so he wasn’t one of those quiet teachers who just sits there and expects you to do it,” he continued.
Bond described how things changed after Guy’s wife was diagnosed. He said, “He wasn’t that energetic person that we were used to for the entire year.”
He added, “He was pretty quiet. We could tell that something was off. We didn’t know what it was, but he did end up telling us.”
Bond noted that he and some other students wanted to do something to help.
“We knew he was very stressed. With his wife needing open-heart surgery — that’s not a very fun thing to have to go through,” he said.
The fund is close to meeting its $10,000 goal. Guy noted he didn’t wish to have others worry about his struggles when he first heard about the fund, but he was moved by the students’ desire to help.
“I was just honored,“ he said, adding, “It kind of made me cry. People were so kind.”
Angel Guy underwent the surgery and is currently recovering.
“She’s in good spirits and she’s happy,” Guy said.