December 2023 was a life-changing month for Heidi Carston. The school bus driver spent the last ten years taking students to and from school daily. However, she received some serious news from doctors in December telling her that she had cancer.
Carston’s cancer is quite severe at stage four, metastatic gastric cancer. Therefore, the days of bussing students through town were over for her. She had to undergo chemotherapy for a chance at survival. She told her students she would not be around for a while as she didn’t want them wondering what happened to her.
“They’re accustomed to the same driver every day,” she said. “They become accustomed to your habits, your style, and I just didn’t want them wondering, ‘What happened to Ms. Heidi?'” After her announcement, the students were sad as they loved her a lot.
However, a little boy, Noah Webber, decided to try to help his bus driver. He told USA TODAY that he didn’t want to just watch and wanted to assist her in any way possible. “When she announced it on the bus, I was sad, I was shocked … I didn’t just want to stand there and watch it happen and not do anything,” Noah said.
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Immediately he got home, Noah told his parents about Carston’s condition and had the idea to organize a bake sale. His parents agreed to help and did the bake sale in Carston’s honor a couple of days later.
The menu included muffins and banana bread, and they posted them on a neighborhood app. Noah’s mom also told her co-workers about it, and another bus driver posted about the sale on an app for bus drivers.
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At the end of the sale, the Webbers raised a whopping 1,000 dollars for Carston! This was a beautiful act of kindness that a little boy of 11 years old made possible! Shortly after Christmas, the Webbers presented the money and gifts to Carston. The gifts included flowers, candy, and a blanket.
This touching story quickly spread, and USA TODAY interviewed Carston as well. “I was just blown away. I just couldn’t even believe it, that he had such a kind heart to be able to even come up with this idea,” she told the news agency.
In addition, several other students on her bus routes have donated and brought her gifts. Carston said she got “overwhelmed by his love and all of the students on all of my routes for giving me gifts … (It was) very, very touching.”
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Noah is only a sixth-grader at Black Hawk Middle School in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagen. However, it is clear to see that he has a heart of gold. His parents and school are very proud of him.
The principal of his school, Anne Kusch, expressed her pride in a brief statement. “We’re super proud of Noah here and excited to see what else he’s going to do in the next two and a half years that he’s with us,” Kusch said. She also noted that he embodies the school’s philosophy: Calm. Kind. Safe.
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