In the wake of two massive hurricanes that pummeled Texas and Florida within a week and a half of one another, it’s hard for most people to know where to even start. This is not the case for the 80 students of Clements High School Key Club.

While Hurricane Irma was pounding the U.S. Virgin Islands and setting her sights on Florida, determined Key Club members were walking the halls and classrooms of their school, buckets in hand, collecting money for a shoes and backpack drive for victims of Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area.

Key Club sponsor and social studies teacher Troy Rogers said that Key Club students wanted to help their peers in a specific way that would bring the most benefit. Using his connections in Houston, where he had once signed a contract to teach at High Tower High School, he found that one of the biggest things high school students needed were shoes and backpacks.

“The insurance companies are saying 185,000 homes have been destroyed in the Houston area,” Rogers said. “A lot of these kids have lost everything and getting them shoes is a priority.”

He added that their goal is to personally deliver at least 400 pairs of shoes and 200 backpacks to a high school that has been largely ignored and in dire need of help.

So far, Key Club members have raised $6,000, most of which has been donated into Key Club buckets by students, facility and support staff. Their final goal is $10,000.

“These kids are just selfless. They’ve been out there with their buckets collecting funds,” Rogers said.

Annalise Lemay, Key Club president and senior at Clements, wanted to help because some of her close friends lost their homes in the tornado outbreak of April 2014.

“It broke my heart then, and it breaks my heart now,” Lemay said. “I may not personally know the victims of Harvey, but it still hits home and made me want to help somehow.”

The campaign is now in its second phase as Rogers and Key Club students plan to fan out into the community, asking local businesses to either offer a discount on shoes and backpacks purchased for the drive or to donate them outright.

“We don’t know if anybody will work with us, but knowing the store managers in the community, I believe they will,” Rogers said. “It’s a tax write-off and a great way for them to help Harvey victims.”

Rogers even did an internet search on the average shoe size of high school males and females.

“We will buy shoes in sizes that 80 percent of high school kids can wear, we hope to spend about $30 per pair and get these kids shoes they can be proud of,” he said.

Over fall break, Rogers and his Key Club co-sponsor Brett Thompson, a social studies teacher at the school, plan to lead a convoy of students and parents willing to deliver the donations to administrators at the Houston high school they chose.

“Then we plan on staying on for two days to help with cleanup,” Rogers added.

Lemay said that she hopes to be part of the delivery and cleanup crew.