Over $114,000 Donated to Quake Relief : Orange County: Businesses and schools send money to Red Cross to help victims of the Bay Area disaster.

Donations for the San Francisco earthquake relief effort from Orange County corporate and private contributors, including schoolchildren, soared Friday to more than $114,000, officials for the American Red Cross said.

Contributions of $10,000 each were made by the Irvine Co. and its employees and by Prudential Home Mortgage in Santa Ana, said Sylvia Stewart, a spokeswoman for the Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross. The United Way of Orange County also announced a $50,000 grant to assist the victims of Tuesday’s 6.9 temblor in the San Francisco area.

At a North Tustin elementary school Friday, children gave Red Cross officials more than $3,600 in contributions they had raised since Wednesday. At Orange High School in Orange, students raised more than $3,000 for earthquake relief in less than 60 minutes through a “Pass the Hat” campaign Friday afternoon.

And many more have contributed nickels and dimes. One donation mailed to the Red Cross headquarters in Santa Ana had these words on the envelope: “From Someone Poor Who Cares,” Stewart said. Inside was $2.19 in coins.

“What these funds will also help is the many of the things insurance doesn’t cover, such as prescription drugs that were lost, minor repairs and even feeding the emergency workers,” Stewart said.

At Arroyo Elementary School in Santa Ana on Friday, 10-year-old Chris Higby said it was after watching the terror and destruction that hit Northern California on television Tuesday night that he decided he had to do something to help.

So on Wednesday morning, the student body president of the school asked his fellow classmates to donate money. Before long, he and his classmates had raised more than $3,600 for the Red Cross earthquake relief fund.

“I just saw all those people out of their homes with no place to go,” Chris said. “It really just made me want to help them anyway I could.”

Red Cross officials said Friday that Arroyo was just one of several elementary and high schools whose students raised thousands of dollars for earthquake survivors.

Brent Bailey, assistant principal at Orange High, said the “Pass the Hat” effort came to him late one night as he mulled over how students could help. “For the last couple of days, kids had been asking what they could do, and this seemed perfect,” he said.

Bailey also noted a historical parallel: Students at Orange High donated funds and clothing to San Francisco residents after the 1906 earthquake that killed 700 people.

“Our school historian found a letter that was sent to us from a school in the area in 1906,” Bailey said. “It was thanking us for the help we’d given. It feels good to be able to give again.”

Red Cross officials said Friday that the money will be used for basic aid for the victims, including supporting the more than 20 shelters the organization is operating currently in the Bay Area.

Stewart said of the donations, especially from Orange County youngsters: “We are very appreciative and touched by the young people wanting to help like this. This is a lesson they couldn’t learn in the school or in books. This is what life is really about--helping one another.”

The Salvation Army of Orange County also has set up a drop point for clothing.