Many of the 200 or so students at Manchester Academic Charter School are poor, but school CEO Vasilios Scoumis urged them to donate what they could to help the earthquake victims in Haiti.

Mr. Scoumis was bowled over yesterday when students at the North Side school brought in about $1,200, which will be donated to the Red Cross.

"You had kindergartners and first-graders opening up a little change purse and dumping it into a jar," he said.

The Haiti catastrophe is ripe for lessons about geography, history and social responsibility. On the latter front, students at dozens of local schools are proving to be quick studies.

They're raising money. They're collecting toiletries and other supplies. And they're doing it with style.

A sixth-grade class in Highlands School District is giving up a Valentine's Day party and contributing to the relief effort instead, district spokeswoman Misty Chybrzynski said.

At the request of the high school boys' basketball team, the district will forego ticket sales at Tuesday's big game with Hampton and accept donations of money or toiletries instead, Ms. Chybrzynski said. Items shouldn't be breakable or at risk of leaking, she said.

Moon Area High School's Student Impact Club began collecting money for quake victims yesterday; most club members have worked in developing nations and have an idea of what the situation in Haiti is like, district spokeswoman Amanda Hartle said.

In Moon Area's Bon Meade Elementary, the student council and Karen Ritter's first-grade students plan to sell Valentine lollipops and heart necklaces to benefit Deep Springs International, a nonprofit founded by Ms. Ritter's son, Michael, who has lived in Haiti for about a year and a half.

The group works to provide clean drinking water -- something in even greater demand since the earthquake. Michael Ritter spoke to his mother's students before Christmas, so they showed up at school concerned after hearing about the earthquake.

"They are very anxious to help in any way that they can," Ms. Ritter said.

That's a sentiment schools around the region are reporting.

"To be perfectly honest, I didn't think the students would give as much as they did," Devaughn Robinson, an eighth-grader at the Manchester charter school, said.

However, he said the earthquake touched a chord with students, who realized the country was struggling even before the disaster. In return for donations, students could wear casual clothes instead of uniforms yesterday.

For a year and a half, Sewickley Academy fifth-graders have corresponded with and financially supported a 9-year-old girl in Haiti. They haven't heard from her since the earthquake but believe that she lived far enough from the epicenter to be all right, Judy Stewart, school French teacher, said.

In coming days, the fifth-graders are planning to sell hot chocolate and French cookies to benefit the French-speaking Haitians, Ms. Stewart said. In warmer weather, she said, the students might sell glasses of water to represent Haiti's need for potable water.

At The Ellis School in Shadyside, the Upper School Guild, a group focused on service projects, is planning a fundraiser that will allow students to make donations and wear something other than their uniforms for a day. The school's board of trustees has offered to double-match the students' total, with donations going to Friends of Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Point Breeze.

Students also are exploring the possibility of an auction of Haitian art in conjunction with the Point Breeze group, school spokeswoman Nancy-Rose Netchi said.

The Future Medical Careers Club at South Allegheny High School is collecting buckets, baby wipes, non-liquid soaps, toothpaste, toothbrushes and combs.

The donated items will be placed in tote bags to be hand-made by middle-school students in a character education class. The students realize that the totes may be the only way for earthquake victims to carry personal items, South Allegheny School District spokeswoman Laura Thomson said.

The filled totes will be turned over to the North Side-based Brother's Brother Foundation, she said.

At West Allegheny Middle School, some students are planning a dance-a-thon for Feb. 5. At a "red out" fundraiser Wednesday at Chartiers Valley High School, students will bring in donations and wear red tops and blue jeans.

At least seven Pittsburgh Public Schools are planning fundraisers; at Stevens K-8 in Elliott, each student has been asked to bring in $1.12, representing Jan. 12, the day the earthquake struck.

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