A seventh grade student in RCS Middle School is conducting a fundraiser for his former teacher who is now battling a rare form of cancer.

Adam McCoy is organizing the Pasta for Poole event that will be held at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Main Street in Ravena on Saturday. The event will run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tickets for the event cost $9 for adults and $4.50. for children. All proceeds will be given to Poole.

While McCoy only had Poole for a little more than a month before the foreign language teacher was forced into a sick leave after discovering a rare form of cancer, the student said he was very impressed by the teacher, his desire to educate and his dedication.

"I learned a lot from him in that month,"  McCoy said.

“Cancer has affected my family for a great deal of time and it really bothered me when I heard about Mr. Poole,”  he said. “I wanted to come up with a way to help Mr. Poole and his family, so I developed this idea of a spaghetti dinner.”

Poole, who lives in Colonie, is battling Burkitt’s lymphoma. Burkitt lymphoma is a very fast growing form of  non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The young teacher - he is just 28 years old – was diagnosed with disease just after the school year began and is receiving aggressive treatment at New York City’s Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

To offset some of the astronomical costs he has incurred, the district has conducted several fundraisers this year.