IRVINE

A mountainous pile of brightly colored clothes, a herd of plush animals and mounds of school supplies and toys filled Heather Sievers’ third-grade classroom at University Park Elementary School last week.

Kids for Kosovo--a group inspired by a pen-pal exchange with an Army chief radiologist stationed in Kosovo--collected almost 900 pounds of donations from students at the elementary school.

“A lot of the kids in the other classes didn’t know that much about Kosovo,” said third-grader Briana Abou-Haidar.

The students asked the classes questions, such as “Does anyone know where Kosovo is?” Then another member of the Kids for Kosovo team explained that Kosovo is in Yugoslavia and that the fighting has been going on for 600 years.