For Austin Emch, it felt like an impossible choice: Stay with his family or leave them behind to live someplace safe, someplace with a future.

But in a simulation at Camp Williams recently, Emch and dozens of other Riverton High students had a glimpse of what it means to be a refugee.

"You think about all these people who have five minutes to pack and leave their homes," said Emch, Riverton's student body president. "Every student there came away with a new appreciation and a gratitude for what we have ... and for what the International Rescue Committee does."

Riverton High students — there are nearly 2,000 of them — turned that appreciation into assistance for refugees, raising an impressive $81,087 in three weeks that was delivered to the International Rescue Committee on Friday.

The kids sold kisses with a llama, threw a benefit concert and auctioned off a group date with student body officers. They did odd jobs in their neighborhoods, shoveling snow, washing windows and cleaning barns.

And in spite of shrinking by a thousand students this year with the opening of Herriman High, Riverton students nearly beat the record set for the "Silver Rush" charity drive two years ago — $82,000.

"What you have done has literally saved lives over the next several months," Patrick Poulin, director of IRC's Salt Lake City efforts, told a group of Riverton students on Friday. "Even those of us who are humanitarians, you inspire us. Thank you."

The money, Poulin said, will help newly arrived refugees with housing, health care, transportation and other needs.

Riverton High and IRC celebrated the contribution on Friday at the Salt Lake City Main Library. Women in the "Best of Africa" dance troupe performed for the students and then invited them to join in. Even Principal Brad Sorensen busted a move.

Sorensen said the charity drive exploded five years ago after the school added an educational component. Students learn more about the issue being addressed through volunteer work and lessons.

Refugees are legal immigrants who have been brought to the United States because of persecution for reasons ranging from politics to religion. They often spend years in a refugee camp before coming to the United States. More than 8,000 refugees came to Utah during the past decade.

In December, one Riverton High student was pulled from every classroom and sent on a field trip to Camp Williams, a National Guard training site near Bluffdale.

There, soldiers spoke to the students in a variety of languages, including Farsi. The students were processed and assigned to mock families. They were given food and water rations and taken to tents in the cold. Some, like Emch, were given an opportunity to leave but they were told they would have to travel alone.

The refugee-camp simulation and service projects with IRC helped students learn more about diversity and about challenges faced in other nations, said Elyse Yerman, a Riverton High senior who proposed IRC as this year's charity.

"Just hearing what these people lived through, it helped me understand and see the world in a different way," said Yerman, whose family volunteered to mentor a Somalian refugee family three years ago. "People come from terrible circumstances, and ... [IRC] helps them find a place to live. It's amazing."

rwinters@sltrib.com