FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) – A group of central Indiana high school students is lending a hand to help send holiday stockings to deployed troops stationed overseas.

Students from Franklin Community High School joined those from several other schools to sew hundreds of Christmas stockings.

Teacher Barb Torrey tells the Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1uLFRxR ) she got the idea for the project while reading that the Indianapolis chapter of the American Sewing Guild needed help sewing about 3,500 stockings annually for Hoosier troops.

Linda Baker of the sewing guild's Indianapolis chapter says this is the first time a school has helped with the project.

More than 50 people cut out snowmen, reindeer and ornaments to help sew the stockings. Other participants included students and teachers in Carmel, Avon, Greenfield and at Center Grove High School.