Hurricane Katrina's aftermath doesn't have a distant, television-world feel to it for elementary school students at Holy Nativity School in 'Aina Haina.

Their teacher, Vicki Morrison, is making sure it stays up close and personal. Before moving to Honolulu four years ago, Morrison lived in Diamondhead, Miss., and taught at East Hancock Elementary School in nearby Kiln. Both towns were hit hard.

Morrison told her fifth- and sixth-grade students about Austin Ladner, a 12-year-old Diamondhead boy who, as a first-grader, had taken his science project to the district science fair. She told them about Brittney, Austin's older sister, and Cameron, the youngest Ladner brother.

Then she told them that the Ladner family had fled to Hawai'i after Katrina took away their home and tore apart all that was familiar in their lives, flattening their neighborhood, eradicating the high school and damaging the elementary school.

Lisa Ladner, the children's mother and an active PTO member at East Hancock, is flying her daughter home today. She hopes that showing Brittney the damage, letting her see that the life they once shared in Diamondhead is, for the moment, gone, will help her 16-year-old daughter to accept and move on.

Morrison told her students story after story about her former Mississippi students and neighbors.

"Diamondhead was a pretty tight community," she said. "The kind of place where everybody watches everybody else's kids."

Diamondhead is named for the O'ahu landmark. Streets in Diamondhead, Morrison said, had Hawaiian names.

Morrison didn't stop at telling her students about Diamondhead and Kiln. She told her fellow teachers and her fellow parishioners at Holy Nativity what had happened to her friends and students in Mississippi.

They all decided to do something about it.

East Hancock was one of four elementary schools in Hancock County, Miss. Two of them were completely destroyed.

East Hancock is being pieced back together, and its principal hopes to re-open in early November to any of her own students who return, and to any of the students from a neighboring school district who have no school at all.

"It was a real task just finding out how many teachers she had," Morrison said. "Seven or eight came in this week, and they've been calling around, trying to find out how many students they have."

Temporary classrooms have been ordered but not yet erected. Neither students nor teachers will have supplies.

That's where Holy Nativity School and Holy Nativity Church are getting involved.

"The school and the church are going to work together to try to help these people in Mississippi," said Holy Nativity headmaster Robert Whiting.

The students will donate half of the money they raise at the annual fall fundraiser, he said.

Morrison will take that money, and money raised by the church, to East Hancock. She'll help determine exactly what is needed, then mobilize a group of friends and former neighbors to disburse to areas that still have stores, and buy the supplies.

Whiting likes the personal face Morrison can put on the effort.

"It's a learning experience for our children," he said. "They'll know there are other children who have serious needs, and that they can help."

Rick Richardson, a member of the church vestry, said the congregation also likes having the first-hand information Morrison is supplying about the hurricane survivors they are assisting.

One person, who isn't even a member of the congregation, has already donated $25,000, he said.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.