FALMOUTH (AP) – Children in Maine and elsewhere are digging deep into imaginations – and piggy banks -to come up with ways to raise money for those countries affected by the tsunami that ravaged south Asia last week.

Ellie MacEwan, 11, came up with the idea of having kids make note cards decorated with artwork to sell this weekend for one dollar donations. All the proceeds going to help tsunami victims.

“I heard about the stationery thing and said, That’s for me!”‘ said MacEwan’s classmate Grant Burfeind, 10, after school Wednesday as he and others gathered at Lunt Elementary School in Falmouth to make the cards.

They may not know it, but these elementary students are part of a nationwide effort of America’s young finding ways to help the disaster victims.

In Florida – where hurricanes wreaked havoc just a few months ago – students have turned from receiving aid to giving it, breaking into their own allowance banks and holding bake sales to raise funds.

In St. George, Utah, high school students collected cash donations as well as blankets, clothing and other supplies for relief efforts.

And in Maine, efforts by students have included penny drives at Longfellow Elementary School in Portland and the Plummer-Motz Elementary School in Falmouth.

“The kids are doing something,” said Debbie Johnson, principal of Plummer-Motz. “They’re not just bringing their parents’ money.”

A sixth-grader at Falmouth Middle School, MacEwan said she got the idea for the cards after watching the disaster on TV and brainstorming with her mother.

Her family also paper American flags and sold them after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to raise money for firefighters.

The cards for tsunami victims will be sold Saturday at Shaw’s in Falmouth.

A group of about 40 elementary students gathered in the Lunt School gymnasium Wednesday to draw pictures on the front of the cards.

Steve Liscovitz, who teaches sixth-grade at Falmouth Middle School, said his students saw the devastation on television, but didn’t know what to do to help until this project came along.

“It struck a chord,” Liscovitz said. “Here is a way for them to contribute.”