After the earthquake that ravaged the Wenchuan area of China's Sichuan province on May 12, several groups of Chinese Pittsburghers were looking for the best way to help the devastated region.

What they couldn't get out of their minds was how many schools had been destroyed (7,000 classrooms, according to the Chinese government), and how many of the 69,000 dead would had been children.

The groups formed a committee spearheaded by the Pittsburgh Chinese School and decided to replace a tiny bit of what was lost with a new, earthquake-resistant school. They began fundraising, reaching out to friends and co-workers by e-mail and word of mouth.

In just two months, the Rebuild-A-School Campaign has raised $84,000. Another $20,000 and it will have passed 40 percent of the total $250,000 price tag -- enough to buy naming rights for the new building.

The name is already chosen: The Pittsburgh Spring Bud School will be an elementary school in the Lizhou district of Guangyuan city. The Chinese government will cover the other 60 percent of the cost.

Ground is to be broken this month and the new school should open in a year, said Hong Tao, board chairwoman of the Pittsburgh Chinese School, a program that offers Sunday language and culture classes at Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill for students of all ages.

Ms. Tao said 70 percent of the money so far has come from local members of the Chinese community, including $6,000 raised by Chinese students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. But many non-Chinese people have chipped in as well, and donations have come from across the country.

The biggest donors are employees of Westinghouse Electric Co., who contributed $20,000, and a matching amount from the company's Nuclear Power Plants Division, which has a contract to build four new plants in China.

"The West is doing a lot of business in China, so a lot of people wanted to help," said committee member Frank Li, a private wealth adviser at Merrill Lynch, Downtown.

Ms. Tao, a medical doctor in China who did research at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center before taking time off to be a stay-at-home mom, became board chairwoman of the Pittsburgh Chinese School on May 11, graduation day. So when the quake hit her homeland the next day, she felt a special responsibility to help.

"I talked to a couple of people and issued the fundraising letter," she said. "Everyone thought it was a good idea."

The committee comprises leaders from the Chinese Faculty Association of the University of Pittsburgh, the local chapter of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, Westinghouse, and the Greater Pittsburgh Area Sichuan and Chongqing Association.

The committee researched Chinese partners for the project and settled on China Children and Teenage Foundation. "They have built other schools," said Mr. Li.

"We checked their track record and financial transparency, and everyone liked this group," said Jian Yu, assistant professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and president of the local Sichuan and Chongqing Association.

Dr. Yu, a native of Sichuan province, said she has not been able to contact her family there since the quake. "I feel strong about this project," she said. "For people in Pittsburgh to pull together and build a school that bears Pittsburgh's name would be so wonderful."

Mr. Li said the campaign is thrilled by its success so far. "We're not fundraising experts. We just feel it's something we need to do."

Tax-deductible contributions to the Rebuild-A-School Campaign may be made to the Pittsburgh Chinese School Educational Foundation Inc. for "China Earthquake Relief-RASC," Box 383, Wexford, PA 15090. More information is available at www.pittsburgh-chinese-school.org.