“What if it happened to you?” This is the question Queen of Angels School students asked in the wake of the ruin and despair brought on by Hurricane Katrina last month in the Gulf Coast states. The students at the Roswell school coped with their emotions by organizing school supply drives, sponsoring a devastated New Orleans Catholic school and putting their emotions down on paper.

Once a month, Queen of Angels students will hold a “hurricane lunch” and loose coin collection. One dollar per student will be donated to a hurricane fund for every child who buys lunch during the month. Each month’s collection will be donated to Catholic Charities USA, the largest private network of social service organizations in the United States working to support families, reduce poverty, and build communities.

From Sept. 8-19, the students collected school supplies, including pens, paper, pencils, backpacks, crayons, scissors, folders and rulers, for the children who have started at new schools in the Atlanta area. Supplies were given to Homestretch, the Housing Initiative of North Fulton, to distribute to the displaced families to help them have a fresh start in their new schools.

Queen of Angels School will also sponsor the students of a Catholic elementary school at the Church of the Resurrection Parish in New Orleans. Father Young Nguyen’s older brother, Father Mike Nguyen, is a priest at the Church of the Resurrection. The church and school suffered significant flooding and will need considerable work to repair and re-open. The Queen of Angels school administration will work closely with the Resurrection school officials to determine where help is needed most.

Katie Murphy, a fifth-grade Queen of Angels Catholic School student, was one of the students at the school who eloquently put down in words what so many were feeling. She wrote, “The victims evacuated, more every hour / Homes were destroyed, lives were lost / Many humans paid a deadly cost…/ So lend a hand, save a life, / Help put an end to the toil and strife / Make a donation, Just one or two / Keep asking, ‘What if it happened to you?’

Queen of Angels School is located at 11340 Woodstock Road, Roswell. For more information, please visit the school’s Web site at www.qaschool.org.