Blackberry Creek students sending donations to Moore, Okla.

Like most people, when Blackberry Creek Elementary School students Payton Micka, 8, and Kailey Davison, 10, learned about the destruction wrought by the EF5 tornado that tore through Moore, Okla., last week, they were saddened.

When they saw what it did to Plaza Towers Elementary School, they knew they wanted to help.

Payton, a third-grader, said she heard about it on the news. “I felt really bad for the kids and wanted to do something for them,” she said.

Her lifelong friend Kailey, a fourth-grader, decided they should take up a collection to help the students of the school. So last Thursday they brought in bins, made signs and asked teachers and classmates to bring what they could. They ended up with about a dozen boxes of clothes and shoes, stacks and stacks of books and a large selection of school supplies in addition to some other items, including some of Kailey’s stuffed animals she wanted to send. The collection will be mailed to the city manager in Moore, Okla., who will make sure everything gets to the school superintendent. The students are including a card of good wishes signed by many of their classmates.

Both kids wish they could meet the students.

“I want to tell them that they had a nice and pretty town and that even though the tornado wrecked it, we want to help them put it back together,” Kailey said.

“I bet they would do the same thing for us,” Payton added.