After learning that their teacher had not been paid in two and a half months and was living and sleeping at the school, students at a Brazilian high school surprised him with a gift.

Bruno Rafael Paiva was taken aback when the students pooled their funds to give him a $400 cash gift.

According to Paiva, he had been filling in for a teacher on maternity leave when his name was not added to the school’s payroll, leaving him without pay for two and a half months.

Paiva received the students’ gift at a time when he was feeling down.

“This month, when I realized I wasn’t going to receive [my salary] after a month and a half of work, I sank into depression.” “[I was] worried and lost [not] knowing how to pay the bills and help my changing family with many of life’s barriers,” he wrote on Facebook.

When his students found out about his problems, they secretly began to raise funds by selling chocolates and holding a raffle at school.

In class, the students surprised him with a gift. Paiva goes to his desk in a video recorded by one of the students and notices a small box on the table. When he opens it, he remains silent for several seconds before speaking.

“It can’t be. “How are you able to do this?” Paiva says as he opens his present. When the students notice him crying, they all stand up and give him a group hug.

“I have many rooms that I have loved in my heart to be a teacher, but no room has ever shown such love, help, and affection for my teacher’s work as the 1st # Buildings did today,” Paiva wrote later. They are students like me who continue to make me believe in the country’s education, in the love of others, in the compassion for putting oneself in the place of others, and, most importantly, in the student’s respect and love for his school’s professor.”

He went on to say that he believes in the students as the future.

Paiva’s surprise gift is shown in the video below.