Cesar Rodriguez has an unusual birthday wish for boy a turning 7.

Instead of gifts, he’s asking for food. He wants to donate this food to his church to help those in need.

Elizabeth Rodriguez’s heart warmed when her son, a first grader at Oak Harbor Elementary School, recently told her about his wish.

She will be holding a birthday party for him at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24 at Windjammer Park. The family asks that anyone who is interested in making a donation drop off canned or other nonperishable food items at the party.

Cesar Rodriguez came up with the idea after experiencing hunger for himself.

He recently had oral surgery that required limiting his diet to soft foods or liquids for two weeks.

The experience was so upsetting that it hurt his stomach and made him cry, his mother said.

It also got the first grader to show a compassionate side beyond his years. When the subject of his birthday came up after his diet had returned to normal, he told his family what he wanted for this birthday.

“He was like, ‘Grandma, I don’t want any presents. I want food,’” Elizabeth Rodriguez said.

“We told him, ‘We have food at home.’ He said, ‘I want to give it to the church.’ When he had surgery, he was so hungry. He said, ‘My stomach hurt so bad, mommy.’ He said, ‘There’s people who don’t have money to buy food.’ He said he knew how it feels to be hungry.”

The words made his mother cry.

“They were tears of joy,” Elizabeth Rodriguez said. “He was actually thinking of other people. Nowadays, kids just want, want, want. They don’t think about giving. We are always teaching our kids to give back. We’re not the richest family. We try to give when we can.”

“It makes me proud that he’s thinking about other people.”

Cesar Rodriguez underwent extensive oral surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital to remove an extra tooth embedded above his adult teeth. The surgery, which involved stitches in his gums and swelling, caused him to miss two weeks of school.

“They expected him to be down three days,” his mother said. “It didn’t work out that way. It took a toll on him.”

While he recovered, he longed for his favorite foods, and when he could eat solid food again, the family went to Domino’s Pizza, where he asked for a cheese pizza with extra cheese.

He had other wishes.

“I always wanted to eat popcorn again,” he said.

Cesar Rodriguez, known simply as “Junior,” returned to St. Augustine Catholic Church Wednesday afternoon to hand out birthday invitations to his classmates attending a religious education class.

The invitations included stickers on the back of the envelopes requesting non-perishable food donations instead of gifts.

“It really caught me off guard,” said Rowena Harless, director of the religious education program at St. Augustine.

“For a first-grade student to do that is kind of amazing. How many kids think of something like that?”

A bin inside the church where food is donated was mostly empty Wednesday.

If Cesar Rodriguez gets his wish, that won’t be the case much longer.