Bruno Rafael Paiva is a beloved teacher in Brazil, so dedicated to his work that he continued teaching despite the fact he hadn’t received pay for two months.
Bruno says he was covering for a coworker on her maternity leave and, because of the bureaucracy in Brazil, his name was not added to payroll.
Not only had Bruno not received salary in two months, but he was also living and sleeping at the school. His substitution job was too far from home to commute. Since he wasn’t getting paid, he couldn’t afford to rent a room nearby, so he made it work by sleeping in the classroom!
When the students in his Building #1 class found out about their teacher’s living situation, they decided to band together and give him a gift he so deserved: $400 of their own pocket money.
Bruno had no clue what was waiting for him inside the small box placed on his desk.
“This cannot be,” he cries in the video below. “How can you do this?!”
That’s when Bruno breaks down sobbing in front of his students before they jump to their feet and embrace him with hugs and tears.