The name was the same and the cause was important, so the St. Andrew the Apostle School community in Clifton decided to come to the aid of its "sister" school in New Orleans.

The St. Andrew School community met recently at the local McDonald’s Restaurant for "McEducator Night." With school staff serving ice cream, handing out balloons, meeting and greeting restaurant patrons, and collecting donations in plastic soda cups the school held a fund-raiser to support the students of the hurricane-stricken school.

"This fund-raiser really was a result of the joint efforts of our entire school community," said Phyllis Hammang, principal. Thanks to a serendipitous internet search by sixth-grade homeroom teacher Christine Fowler, the school learned that there was a Catholic school in New Orleans with the same name. As moderator of the school student government, Fowler broached the idea with student leaders of finding out whether the Louisiana school needed help. The students and staff members enthusiastically took up the cause.

Next, Hammang contacted Sybil Skansi, the New Orleans school principal.

"I think I’m going to cry," Skansi said in response. "We’re usually the school that’s helping others, but on behalf of our school, I humbly and gratefully accepted your offer to help us."

She then told Hammang that, as a result of the hurricane, the school, the first to reopen in New Orleans, had accepted more than 100 new students whose former schools had been badly damaged or destroyed by the hurricane. Children, some of whom were now homeless, were given free tuition, books, uniforms and even free lunches. Financial assistance from a sister school would go a long way to help the community.

Students, school parents and friends ate together, enjoyed one another’s company and supported their sister school by raising more than $1,000. Perhaps, more importantly, they taught the children an important lesson: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."