DECATUR — Students at St. Patrick School in Decatur responded in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan by raising over $1,000 in change to send to devastated areas in the Philippines.

Seventh-grade teacher Sara Kennedy says she's proud of the "incredible job" her students did with organizing the "Pennies for the Philippines" campaign to send donations to the typhoon-torn country through Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

The seventh-graders put banks in each of the school's classrooms and asked students to bring change to donate to CRS. They also printed out flyers to send home to parents, explaining that CRS has been assisting the Philippines since World War II and that now, in the aftermath of the strong typhoon, financial assistance is greatly needed.

"The school organizes various projects throughout the year, (for example holding) canned food drives," says Kennedy. "We have sponsored a child in Kenya and participated in MCA (Missionary Childhood Association), but this is the first time the seventh-grade class decided to organize a campaign like this one."

Seventh-grader Emma Svensen was chosen as the spokesperson for the project. "All of the teachers do a current events topic and told their students about the Philippines," Kennedy says. "But when presenting the banks to each class, Emma was chosen to speak and explained the types of things their money would go towards — everything from the essentials like toilet paper to bigger rebuilding projects of homes and schools."

One of the seventh-graders asked her parents to donate pizza as an incentive to reward the class that collected the most money. The winning classroom was Julie Hettinger's second grade, which raised $158.25.