Even as the death toll from Hurricane Katrina climbs and more are left homeless, people in the Puget Sound area are mobilizing to help.

• Seattle University, in conjunction with other Jesuit universities, will accept students from Tulane University, Xavier University of New Orleans and Loyola University of New Orleans as visiting nonmatriculated students until their institutions reopen.

• This weekend, local houses of worship will make a big push to collect money for relief efforts.

The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, for instance, asks that all congregations in Western Washington hold a special offering Sunday for the Episcopal Relief and Development hurricane-relief effort to provide emergency supplies to survivors.

• Various disaster-relief and search-and-rescue teams from Washington state were called on by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist in the Gulf Coast region.

A team of 28 people from Washington Urban Search and Rescue Task Force left yesterday to take equipment and drinking water to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. A team of 33 medical and nonmedical personnel from Washington and Oregon flew to Houston on Sunday to deliver medical equipment and help.

• Steve Queyrouze, owner of three Ruth's Chris Steak Houses in the Northwest, is from New Orleans. He is donating 20 percent of sales in his Bellevue, Seattle and Portland restaurants Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to the Salvation Army for hurricane relief.

Queyrouze lived 30 years in New Orleans. He said he is certain his family home there is destroyed but said all of his and his wife's families are safe. They are, however, homeless, fleeing with what they could put into a car.

• Louisiana sent out a request nationwide for help in its field hospitals and special- needs shelters. The state needs 25 doctors (emergency-medicine doctors, pediatricians and surgeons), 50 nurses and 10 respiratory therapists. Public Health- Seattle & King County has put out the call for local volunteers.

Compiled by staff reporter Janet I. Tu, who can be reached at jtu@seattletimes.com