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Heading to the beach is a favorite spring break activity, a great American pastime for thousands of high school and college students every year.

But when 20 Sandia Preparatory School students set out for the beach during their break last month, they had something other than sunning, flirting and slacking on their minds.

These students - juniors and seniors accompanied by three faculty members - went to Pass Christian, Miss., on the Gulf Coast, to clean up and rebuild parts of that and nearby towns that had been mostly washed away by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

They went to help, to learn, to see for themselves. What they brought back likely will stay with them longer than the deepest tan.

"It kind of changed my life," senior Scott Little, 18, said. "I saw the destruction Mother Nature can cause, but I also saw the hope the people there have, the fact that they cared for each other and wanted to help each other.

"I realized that unless something bad happens, people don't band together like they could."

Senior Kathleen Easter, 18, said she learned some things about compassion and understanding.

"You cannot truly understand what these people are going through without seeing it," she said. "One lady was living in a house without running water. Eighteen months without water. I can't fathom that.

"And they were so nice down there; it touched your heart. People would stop us and tell us thank you. One man brought us chocolate. A lady brought us something to drink. They had been through so much, and they were still so nice."

Pass Christian sits on the Gulf of Mexico, sandwiched between New Orleans to the west and Gulfport, Miss., to the east. Before Hurricane Katrina, it was a town of about 7,000 people.

Katrina's storm surge at Pass Christian on Aug. 29, 2005, was estimated at 30 to 37 feet. It pretty much swept the town clean up to a half mile in from the shore. Of the approximately 8,000 homes in the town, all but 500 were damaged or destroyed.

"When we first got down there, I was just in shock," said junior Patrick Biggers, 17. "It still looks like a war zone. I thought way more buildings would have been repaired. It was a lot worse than I thought it was going to be."

"Ten times worse," Easter added. "I could not believe the amount of debris lying around."

Steve Ausherman, Sandia Prep's photography and fine arts teacher, sparked the idea for the weeklong expedition.

Ausherman, 38, spent three weeks last summer doing volunteer work along the Gulf Coast. The stories he brought back fired up Prep students.

"I had never even been to the South before, but Mr. Ausherman seemed so excited when he came back last year," said junior Kate Malin, 17. "It seemed to make a difference in him. And I think it is a really important thing to do. I think a lot of people have forgotten about it."

Ausherman knew he wanted to go back, and he said the experiences he had working on the Gulf Coast would be valuable for Prep students.

"I thought it would be great as a formative thing for the kids," he said. "The kids worked hard down there. Not only in rebuilding homes and clearing debris, but also meeting the residents. These meetings were literally tearful, and the kids were so sensitive, so compassionate."

The Sandia Prep team - led by Ausherman, science teacher Helen Haskell and physical education teacher and baseball coach Paul Huitt - flew out of Albuquerque on March 18 and returned March 24.

They worked with an organization called Restoration Point, which coordinates volunteer efforts, and stayed in a bunkhouse the organization had set up in a restored house in Pass Christian.

"We did all sorts of things," said senior Riva Black, 18. "My group did some roofing. At one point, I crawled under a house to hammer in some 12-inch bolts to help stabilize it. I had never used power tools before, but I got to use jigsaws and power saws."

Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Pass Christian Public Library. The makeshift library that has gone up in its place consists of two trailers joined by a deck.

Black worked on painting a memorial mural at the new library, an ocean scene with a boat.

"We called it `Esperanza Rising' because esperanza means hope," she said.

Little was part of a group of eight who installed a railing at a house that was being rebuilt from the ground up. He said the woman who had lived in the house - and who hoped to live there again - spent hours watching them.

"She was trying to imagine what it would be like when it was finished, because that was all she had left that was tangible," he said. "Everything else she owned was destroyed in the hurricane."

Kate Malin's group cleaned debris from a front yard one day, built a deck another day, hung drywall and patched the roof of a trailer home.

"The man with a hole in his roof had a stroke a couple of years ago," she said. "He had weathered the storm in his trailer. He was inland far enough that he did not get flooded, but a tree fell on his roof, punching a hole in it and causing it to leak. He was living there all this time. He had no choice."

Biggers admitted getting choked up as he drove by mile after mile of devastation.

"The people there were happy we were there and excited to show us things," he said. "But every time you would talk to someone, they would have a depressing story. Just hearing their stories and seeing the destruction was definitely overwhelming."

The students learned a lot in Pass Christian, but they brought back some questions, too.

"Based on what they told us, the people there felt abandoned," Biggers said. "And just knowing they are Americans, and we really can't help them is sad. I'm just wondering why we can't even help our own people."

Many of the Prep students are already making plans to return to the Gulf Coast - to help as much as they can.

"I would go back in a heartbeat," Easter said. "I actually plan to go back in the summer when I can get some time off from work. I wished we could have stayed longer. By Thursday or Friday, when we really knew what we needed to do, it was almost time to leave."

Little and some other Prep seniors are planning on returning to the Gulf Coast in May, as part of their Senior Experience. Instead of attending classes for the final month of school, Sandia Prep seniors embark on a Senior Experience, which might mean working at jobs that interest them, observing someone in a career field that intrigues them or doing volunteer work.

"I think a lot of people don't realize the amount of destruction in the area," Little said of the Gulf Coast. "I think a lot of Americans don't care."

Ausherman said juniors are already asking him to organize another Gulf Coast expedition next year. He will return to the area in June, he said.

"Something seems to happen when you go down there," he said. "It grabs hold of you. We met person after person who planned to go down for a week and stayed six months. Or, they planned to go down for a week and have been back four times."

He said volunteers are everywhere - high school kids, college students, Mennonites, young Amish people, elderly people.

"People say why go back next year? Will there still be things to do?" Ausherman said. "Yes. It's just amazing, but there will be. Most of the people there are predicting eight to 10 years for recovery. There's definitely still work to be done on the Gulf Coast."

Ausherman is proud that the Prep students sacrificed some of their holidays to help out as best they could. But he is prouder still that so many of them want to return.

He said it shows a toughness that goes beyond physical endurance. Because on the Gulf Coast, it's not the physical labor that'll break a volunteer. It's the tragedy behind the work that'll do that.

"When someone is telling you they lost their home, lost everything, there are so many options to step back," he said. "When someone is telling you they lost their mother and is breaking down in front of you, that's an opportunity to back away.

"These kids didn't."