It’s a simple wooden box, but it has the power to change someone’s life.

After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last month, Mark Padbury’s Orcas High School wood shop class discussed some of the stories and images they’d seen in the media.

“Many of the pictures just being released made clear the catastrophe and chaos that the Japanese people were encountering,” Padbury said. “I suggested we reach out to these people and focus on something positive for them.”

The class decided to find a high school in Japan and raise money for its students.

“No sooner had I walked away to attend to someone else in the class than these students, Staci Lindgren, Kirsten Fowler, Joseph Kostechko, and Zachary Kostechko, confronted me with a written  plan defining our mission,” Padbury said. “It was decided to build a box and place it on a base as a location for contributions our island community might make toward our island friends to the east. Sendai Senior High School is our target and we welcome and encourage your generous contribution to the cause.”

The box is made from 100 percent Orcas cherry and juniper wood. “Japan Relief” is carved in the top in both English and Japanese. The box will rotate between Island Market, Orcas Village Store, Islanders Bank, and the library.

The box and its contents will be mailed in May to the high school, which is located on the east coast of Japan halfway between Tokyo and the northernmost tip of the island.

“Let it be said that regardless of the struggles and physical challenges our school endures, one thing is for certain: it remains a perpetual ambassador building machine that so many of the kids that leave here get to live and we can all be proud of that,” Padbury said.