Nine-year-old Aidan Sullivan has already survived a lot in his young life. The Brewster, New York, resident has had to undergo ten plastic surgeries to correct congenital facial deformities and the $8,000 required to fund his latest procedure was recently stolen after a local fundraiser.

When Peter Crotty, the founder of the Vincent Crotty Memorial Foundation, read this story in the paper, he stepped up and replaced the lost funds, the Connecticut-based Danbury News Times reports.

Detectives are still investigating the stolen money that had been collected to provide Sullivan with a new ear. The third-grader was born with hemifacial microsomia, a condition which inhibits one half of the face from developing correctly. His parents had planned to go ahead with the surgery and find a new way to pay the portion not covered by insurance when Crotty intervened.

"Sometimes in life, you just look at a situation and you know it's the right thing to do," Crotty told the news source.

Crotty’s Foundation was established in his son’s memory to help local children, families in need and local sports programs.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the condition almost always requires some level of reconstructive surgery. Such delicate procedures should be performed by a board-certified plastic surgeon or member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.