When Dowagiac Middle School health instructor Meredith Marrs decided to assign Paula Fox’s novel “Monkey Island” to her class of seventh-graders, she was hoping that story’s depiction of the 11-year-old main character’s plight of trying to survive on the streets of New York would strike a nerve.

Judging by the reaction from, not just her classroom, but from other students, fellow staff, administrators, and even parents across the entire district, it seems to have accomplished just that and more.

Beginning this week, the students launched a school-wide campaign, asking their classmates to donate new bottles of shampoo, tubes of toothpaste, boxes of Kleenex, and other essential toiletries, which will be donated to the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Services shelter in Three Rivers. The drive is currently scheduled to take place through March 20, with students divvying up the collected items into grab-bags for visitors to the shelter to use at the end of the drive.

The students are part of Marrs’ current “success time” class, which are among several within the middle school designed to enhance and enrich the student’s learning experience, the teacher said. She decided to assign her students Fox’s novel based on a recommendation from a friend, who said that other districts have used the book as a way to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless population within the community.

“My students sat down, read the novel and talked about what it means to be homeless,” Marrs said. “It doesn’t just happen to people living on the mean streets of New York. It happens here as well.”

While making their way through the story, the students began to discuss ideas on how to support families going through a similar experience close to home. Instead of doing a more conventional food or clothing drive, they settled on collecting basic bathroom items, Marrs said.

“A lot of shelters need the everyday things,” she said. “Not just clothes, but things all sexes or both adults and children could use.”

The class also devised several ways to help promote the drive throughout the month, including making posters, creating videos to show to other students during lunchtime, and broadcasting a daily fact about homelessness during the morning announcements, Marrs said.

“I’m very proud of them,” she said. “I think sometimes people underestimate what middle school students can do. They’ve really stepped up, and it’s for a cause they believe in helping.”

Even people outside the middle school are interested in getting involved with the drive, Marrs said. Since news about the drive has spread to Facebook, teachers at the elementary schools and high school have also asked about allowing students at their buildings to contribute. Even people from outside the schools have asked about donating.

“Homelessness gets over ooked sometimes, but it’s a problem we have in the area,” Marrs said. “The more awareness we can bring to it, the more we can help our community.”