Some UD students used their fall break to help with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Three groups from UD went to three different parts of Mississippi. A group of 10 students and two teachers from the Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) headed to Pascagoula Miss., to help with various cleanup efforts.

DECA is a Dayton public high school on UD's campus. Their tasks included distributing goods, shoveling mud, cleaning up debris and helping with landscaping. The group left by bus on Oct. 5 and returned four days later. They joined volunteers from Colorado, New Hampshire and New York in working 12-hour days trying to make homes inhabitable once again.

The group funded the trip in part by a grant from UD and a car wash, but most of their money came from individual donations on campus. The students raised $700 for the trip by simply walking around campus with buckets, telling people they were going to help with Katrina. The students lived prudently while on the trip. They slept on cots or the floor of the Eastlawn United Methodist Church and ate from a food trailer that cooked meals from donated canned goods.

The students gained a 'greater appreciation for what they have and what they don't need,' said P.R. Frank, one of the DECA teachers who went on the trip.

A group of about 34 students from the UD chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ and three staff members from Miami University traveled in three vans to Pass Christian, Miss., from Oct. 7-11. The Trinity Episcopal Church organized the relief effort. This group helped tear out wet carpet from Gulfport homes, organized a clothes and toy drive and prepared meals.

The last and largest group to go to Mississippi was coordinated through UD's Center for Social Concern and Catholic Charities Distribution Center. Approximately 55 students, faculty and staff made the 1600-mile journey by bus.

The group left UD at 9 a.m. and arrived in Biloxi, Miss., at 3 a.m. They started working the following day at 6:30 a.m. They stayed at the diocesan retreat center in Dedeaux. They spent their time unloading trucks, cleaning churches and schools, and helping with debris removal in local homes. They concentrated many of their efforts in clearing out St. Louis Parish Church. By the time they left, the parish was able to hold mass in the church.

Sarah Hampton, a third-year Art History and Religious Studies major, was among the group who went to Biloxi. She could not believe the devastation she saw when she arrived.

'I had no idea how massive the destruction was, it was like being in a movie,' said Hampton.

Hampton volunteered because she 'felt detached from what was happening and wanted to help out.'