BATON ROUGE- Students at St. James Episcopal Day School raised just under $1,000 for Emmanuel Episcopal School in Houston, which was devastated by Hurricane Harvey, and collected 50 boxes of books for Gonzales Primary School.

All this was done in a two-week period during a school-wide outreach project from Dec. 4-15.

According to a release, every grade had a collection box that was placed outside their classrooms where the students regularly put new and gently used books. Every box was overflowing by the time the project came to an end. Each classroom was also given a jar to collect cash, coins, and checks for Emmanuel Episcopal School.

Once the project was completed, fifth-grade students helped load the boxes of books and outreach committee members helped deliver the books to Gonzales Primary for their classroom libraries.