The cafeteria tables are submerged as the chairs float six inches above the ground. The library is a pond: books float across like ducks. The gym is long past falling apart; the hardwood floors stripped away after being ruined by flood damage.

This destruction’s reach has gone beyond school property. The students and faculty have been left in the swirling dust of this disaster. Students at Runnels High School, located in a small town just outside of Baton Rouge, are starting their semester in a tightly-packed building without any of the resources their campus had offered them.

The Allen PALs began collecting donations the first week of school in order to help rebuild Runnels. The PALs have collected more than $9000 over two weeks of fundraising to donate to the high school. PALs teacher Jennifer Clements says things picked up quickly.

“Normally we spend the first three weeks of PALs getting to know each other, but we had to run with Runnels,” Clements said. “We started on the first day. It’s been a little chaotic but we’ve done it. It helps that we have 10 classes of PALs.”

Those 10 classes originally heard about the situation from a fellow faculty member who got them into contact with students and staff from Runnels. After seeing pictures of the devastation Clements felt the need to act.

“I think [the photos are] kind of what changed our hearts like, ‘Woah,’” Clements said. “This is not something little.”

The students have taken the project outside of the classroom in many different ways. Junior Izzah Zaheer is using her personal connections to help spread the word.

“I’m a coordinator for the Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation youth group,” Zaheer said. “We have a pretty big reach, so I sent out an email [with] two links that we used for online donation. I also used their social media platforms and used the hashtags we created: “#RebuildRunnels” and “#RescueTheRaiders.”

The PALs got in contact with Ben Young, a basketball coach from Runnels High School. After talking with him over the phone, they both decided to invite Coach Young, along with two seniors, to the high school for a visit. Young says it’s incredible to see what the PALs have done.

“It’s pretty mind-blowing,” Young said. “It’s just encouraging to see someone completely not from Louisiana take this on.”

According to Young, Louisiana isn’t in the best shape to start the school year.

“If you can imagine, your senior year, being displaced,” he said. “A lot of people can’t get in their homes. One family we know has seven kids, and they have to live with their friends. It’s chaotic.”

The devastation stretches far and wide, all around the Baton Rouge area.

“In Parrish, 90 percent of homes got knocked out,” he said. “It’s kind of crazy. Just about everybody knows four or five people that got flooded.”

Jackie, Young’s wife who came to Allen along with their infant daughter, said the smell is the worst thing pictures can’t show you.

“It’s hard to do it justice,” Jackie said. “The smell is really what’s overwhelming. You just realize how catastrophic it is.”

If there’s anything positive in Runnels’ situation, it’s the overwhelming sense of community. Runnels senior Connor Airkrantz said everyone in his neighborhood is keeping each other safe.

“The back of my neighborhood got flooded,” Airkrantz said. “So there’s like 30 feet of water right there, and my friend who has a boat, he brought one person back to their house to get insulin and saved one kid’s life.”

Airkrantz said that the need to work together is necessary to get by, and that the lack of news coverage doesn’t help, but what Allen has improved the situation a lot.

“Anything y’all can give will really help,” he said. “What Allen’s doing for us, we really appreciate it.”