Noah's story continues: 650 students applaud one of their own

HIGHLANDS RANCH - On one ordinary school day, they lined up in the halls, all 650 students and started to applaud. The applause went on from the sixth grade classrooms all the way down to the kindergarten classrooms.

Every student clapping for just one classmate, a second grader named Noah Kelley. On this day, Noah was celebrating an anniversary, one year of remission from leukemia.

Noah's classmates at Copper Mesa Elementary School in Highlands Ranch learned about his fight against cancer this year. Besides hearing about his illness, they heard about his efforts to give back to the people who helped him.

This summer, Noah and his family hosted a garage sale to raise money for The Children's Hospital, the Gabby Krause Foundation and Make-a-Wish. Noah also sold T-shirts that read: "BOO I scare cancer." In just three months, he has collected over $13,000.

This week, he got 650 more sales.

At Copper Mesa, Noah is in Christine Capocelli's second grade class. She wants her students to think outside the box.

"One of the things I try to do in my classroom is not just academics, but to build some character and this was a really huge thing for my class," she said.

Noah's shirt sale gave her a unique opportunity. 9NEWS first met him over the summer during his sale.

Now he's cancer free.

"Noah is one of the most amazing kids I've ever met. Very articulate; can explain anything that he's going through and does a very good job of explaining to the kids. He's very empathetic to other kids," Capocelli said.

So, there was a school-wide pep assembly for The Children's Hospital. And that's when the other children at the school bought Noah's T-shirts.

Capocelli also has a personal reason for supporting his cause.

My teacher had leukemia too, just like me, she understands a lot about what happened, and so I don't really have to talk to her about certain kinds of things because she knows about them," Noah said.

Capocelli found out about her leukemia in 2007.

"I found out when I was pregnant that I had leukemia, and the only reason I found out was because I was pregnant," she said.

Her daughter had to be born four weeks early, but turned out just fine.

"So I started chemo four weeks after she was born," Capocelli said.

The experience has created a unique bond between teacher and student.

"He was meant to be in my class for a reason - to teach me and to teach my kids and for me; to help me get through my stuff too," Capocelli said.

Copper Mesa held their annual Cougar Chase this week and is giving 80 percent of the proceeds to The Children's Hospital. The goal is to raise at least $5,000.

As for Noah, he's still selling his shirts.

For more information, you can visit http://schools.dcsdk12.org/education/staff/staff.php?sectiondetailid=1164&.

"We might raise a lot of money to cure a lot of sick kids, or help them at least," Noah said.

"I think for my own children, and for my kids in my class, I want them to understand how quickly thinks can change and how lucky we are to have what we have," Capocelli said.