As floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey rose, a multitude of districts across southeastern Texas closed down their schools for what would have been the first week of school.

With a devotion to helping out those schools affected by the hurricane, some schools in LISD joined a challenge on Twitter to raise funds; LHS, tagged by The Colony High School, decided to raise funds for Hardin-Jefferson ISD.

“There was a personal connection between the Student Council sponsor there and Ms. Stamey,” principal Jeffrey Kajs said. “They’ve worked together on committees and I said ‘You know what? Let’s just see if we can help them out.’ We heard that because they were a smaller school district outside of the Houston-Beaumont area, they were kind of getting overlooked because the bigger school districts were getting the funds and the reliefs, so we just wanted to make sure everybody was getting helped.”

Kajs is working together with Student Council, JROTC and other clubs in an effort to get as many students to donate, with StuCo being the main core of the organization.

“We have cans that [the StuCo officers have] been walking around [with] to second period classes or during lunch and collecting monetary donations that way,” student body community service officer Claire Marrone said. “We also, during the home game, went through the stands and people donated from the crowds. Students as well as teachers and parents are also donating school supplies, backpacks, toiletry items and gift cards from Home Depot or Lowe’s to the Student Council room, G144. ”

The relief fund is centered at Main, however, Harmon and Killough are also contributing through clubs and organizations that branch off from Main.

“We have NJROTC on all campuses so we’re going to have a few of our kids from both Killough and Harmon gather donations at their schools,” NJROTC supply officer Renay Thompson said. “StuCo is who we go to make sure this all gets set up, so all the clubs are kind of going to StuCo on where to start and how we should do it. I’m in rugby as well and and we started off from StuCo by asking them the right questions on where we should be.”

Hardin-Jefferson ISD has about 2,100 students spread across four campuses. The goal is to raise at least $1 for every Fighting Farmer, and the relief fund is also focusing on getting more school supplies and backpacks for each student.

“This relief fund is a way to help those that are affected by the storm to get back on their feet, to get them started,” Kajs said. “I’m thinking of all those school children that didn’t have the excitement of having the first day of school, so it’s our way to help and give whether it’s money or school supplies to those students and teachers.”