"When you get into a situation that we have in the gulf coast now it is so large that you have to wonder what can we do," says Bernard Martin of the Mennonite Disaster Service.

Well, if you're a student at Eastern Mennonite Middle or High School, you can raise a lot of money.

"We originally set our goal at around $1,000 and we ended up with a lot more than that," says EMHS senior Steven Stauffer.

How about $8,000 in just two weeks? Not a bad chunk of change for the Mennonite Disaster Service, which plans on making a big difference down south.

"What that does is help one family, then another, then another, and you can't do it all, but we can do our share," says Martin.

Mennonite Disaster Service currently has four work sites in the area of hurricane Katrina but it's local influence on the students has been somewhat therapeutic.

"I guess it was relieving to have a program like this that you knew could take your money and actually do something helpful with it, " says sophomore Bergen White. "It's great to rely on someone that knows what to do or has more knowledge."