By Deemah Pulak

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, RISD and the RISD Council of PTAs launched a project to engage families across the district who wanted to help hurricane and flood victims in southeast Texas which flooded 50 counties.

“I’m all for it,” Assistant Principal Mike Westfall said. “Any time you can help anyone else it’s what you need to do – that’s what we should all be about.”

RISD encouraged families to bring donations of undergarments, personal hygiene products, sweatpants and sweatshirts, diapers, formula, toiletries and non-perishable food items to their elementary and junior high schools. Every Friday, those schools brought all the donated items to their feeder high school to be organized and picked up by RISD box trucks.

“Hurricane Harvey was a very unfortunate event, but it just brought people together,” Secretary Gloria Ince said. “You see how caring people are – maybe Texans are more than others – and how everyone got together and gave their time, their boats, food and other things.”

Richardson was a drop off point for those located around the high school. A truck provided by RISD picked up the donations Friday afternoon and delivered donations to the Red Cross or Dallas County, as appropriate, for distribution to Harvey victims. Five truckloads of items were collected from Richardson last Friday.

“I’m really impressed on how everyone came together and I think that’s good for the country to see,” Ince said. “I think we, at Richardson High School, are always involved when it comes to things like relief efforts and helping for good causes, and I like that we are the holding station for that.