East Aurora students raise money for school closed by Harvey

East Aurora High School students are starting their year raising money for a school near Houston that has reportedly been closed this year because of damage from Hurricane Harvey.

Principal Marina Kosak said devastation at the Texas school struck a particular chord with her because of construction this year at East Aurora High School, which opened with new athletic facilities and where a new fine arts wing remains under construction.

“With how fortunate we have been here at East Aurora with so much construction, to see a school have to go through that because of Mother Nature, is what I think our kids can really relate to right now,” she said.

So East Aurora school officials, working with members of the student council and the principal’s advisory committee, created a coin war between each grade level. The money is set to go to Kingwood High School in a suburb of Houston, Kosak said.

A photo posted Tuesday on the Houston Chronicle website, chron.com, showed much of the Kingwood High School building submerged in water. According to the school’s website, Kingwood students will share a campus with another school, and the start of the year has been delayed two school days. News reports describe the Texas high school’s football team practicing with borrowed gear.

As another major hurricane, Irma, bore down on Florida Friday, Kosak said the school would have to seewhat happens there. Some East Aurora staff have family in Florida, and the school was “on pins and needles” waiting and watching.

Kosak found Kingwood High School through social media, news reports and because an acquaintance’s children attend, she said. Though someone there is aware East Aurora is raising money for the school, Kosak said she hasn’t had direct contact with school officials. They are in the process of creating a new plan for the school year, and she will contact them once the money has been raised, she said.

“I wanted to see also what did they need,” she said. “Do they need supplies, whatever, whatever it was. So many people have given to that and I know the Aurora community has reached out with those kind of supplies, so they were getting those. And so now it’s about rebuilding their school community.”

Kosak said she has already seen paper money in the coin collection jugs, and estimated after the first day students had raised nearly $100. The coin war is set to last through Friday, a total of seven school days.

The winning grade will take part in a new East Aurora tradition: raising a class flag over the new high school stadium, Kosak said. Each class has a different color flag with the school mascot tomcat on it, and class flags can be raised or lowered for various events throughout the year. The winner of the coin war will have that class flag raised next, she said.

In Kosak’s five years in East Aurora, she said she’s often seen students’ desire to help others in Aurora and other communities. When she discussed with students the possibility of helping Kingwood, they were excited, she said.

“I think our Tomcats have such big hearts,” she said.

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