COOPERATING ON A TRULY CLASS PROJECT STUDENTS UNITE TO SUPPORT VICTIMS OF ASIAN TSUNAMI.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

SAUGUS - To the pupils in the Saugus Union School District, helping is elementary.

Pupils participated in run-a-thons and walk-a-thons, held yard sales, waged penny wars, sponsored restaurant fund-raisers, collected their parents' loose change and created an art gallery.

Through their creative efforts, the 14 district schools have raised a total of nearly $50,000 to help victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that devastated parts of Indonesia.

Dillon Morse, a second-grader at Cedarcreek Elementary, established a Web site with the sentiment that every person can help make a difference. To date, he's raised $5,450 for the American Red Cross tsunami relief fund.

``Every school did something a little different,'' said Joan Lucid, the district's assistant superintendent for instruction. ``Sometimes, the PTAs were involved. Sometimes, it was the student council. We had some children break open their piggy banks at school, and others whose parents sent in loose change.''

Lucid said 12 of the 14 schools were sending their donations to Habitat for Humanity's tsunami rebuilding fund. According to the charity, it takes approximately $1,600 to build a house for one family, which gave the students something to aim for.

At Bouquet Canyon Elementary, students collected pennies, amassing 285,000 with a few nickels, dimes and quarters mixed in for a donation of more than $2,900. A ``Have A Heart'' Valentine Day activity garnered $2,700 for the cause.

Fliers and bulletins advertised a restaurant night at Islands for Emblem Elementary that brought in $3,200. James Foster Elementary did a run-a-thon over three weeks called ``Raise the Roof.'' That effort also attracted the attention of Lowe's Home Improvement Center, which matched the funds for a total of $5,342.

At Helmers, children are still collecting money for UNICEF and plan a run-a-thon Friday.

``Knowing that community, it will be significant,'' Lucid said.

Collections at Highlands Elementary garnered $2,500, and North Park piggy banks yielded $4,500, helped along by lemonade sales.

At Mountainview, an academic contest raised money for school projects and allocated $1,600 for the rebuilding project. Plum Canyon got graphic with its house building, posting a chart in the office showing the progress of its donations, which totaled $2,700.

An old-fashioned ice cream social sponsored by Rio Vista brought in $1,700 in cold, hard cash, augmented by donations collected at the event. A kids' art gallery at Rosedell School charged ``admission,'' collected donations and ran a used-book sale to come up with $4,800.

``They were really excited about participating because they were able to see something good,'' Lucid added.

A war of the copper penny variety ensued at Santa Clarita, where odd- number classrooms vied with even-number ones to gather donations. Donated coins larger than a penny were put in collection jars in the respective classrooms. Pennies were used as a penalty; all the pennies collected in the even rooms were put in a jar in the odd rooms, decreasing the total collected by a like amount. The winner of the penny war is still a secret, but the school turned more than $3,300 in donations.

And Skyblue Mesa students simply passed the hat, garnering $1,900 for relief efforts.

``Our kids have always participated in different activities outside of their own school,'' Lucid said. ``This is the first time that we've aggregated together as a district. The principals felt that kids could understand building homes, and the kids undertook the effort to give people a new roof over their heads.''

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com