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Tenth-graders in the Jewish Center of Princeton's Siyyum Tichon class have been volunteering yearly in Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina devastated a small synagogue in Biloxi. The connection to Biloxi is through Annie Tucker, the Jewish Center's associate rabbi, who arrived at Congregation Beth Israel to serve as its student rabbi right after the 2005 hurricane that wreaked destruction in the Gulf area.

The students who went on the first trip in 2006 unscrewed the ruined synagogue's memorial plaques, cleaned out debris, and reorganized what remained usable inside. In 2007, another class painted rooms at a Salvation Army volunteer center, and in 2008 students painted rooms in two houses and cleaned debris outdoors. This year a group of 17 Jewish Center students dismantled and disposed of a ruined "shower trailer" in a volunteer camp run through the Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi.

The trip, which ran Nov. 4-8 had three goals, all of which were achieved, said Tucker.

"The goals were: community building -- they had such great time being with each other and bonding; community service -- giving back to the community; and showing the kids a very different kind of Jewish community -- the only Conservative synagogue on the Gulf Coast, with only 45 families and a religious school of seven kids," she said.

For the students, tikkun olam, or fixing the world was a strong motivation. Tobi Afran, a sophomore at Princeton High School, said, "I decided to go because it would be a good chance to help people in ways that you usually wouldn't get to; most people don't get to go to another state to help with a big disaster."

Brian Tesser, a sophomore at South Brunswick High School, agreed. "I wanted to go mostly because -- just the experience of being able to go there and make a difference," he said. The students are very close, he added, and for him it was also important "being part of them and doing something bigger than myself."

The students were surprised at how much of the hurricane's devastation was still evident in Biloxi.

"I thought it would be very built up and you wouldn't be able to tell that anything had happened," said Afran. "Coming into the airport over the water, you could see blocks and blocks of emptiness and destroyed stuff." She saw many lots with only driveways, stairs, or foundations and no houses. The docks were also destroyed, with only wood supports remaining. Every few lots she saw new houses, elevated so that water can flow beneath them in the case of a future hurricane.

Tesser was also bowled over by the enormity of the destruction.

"It was unbelievable to see so much still needed to be done," he said, "but being able to be part of that and being able to help just little bit was a good experience."

Soon after their arrival the students had a tour of the rebuilt Congregation Beth Israel and heard about what happened to it during the hurricane. The Torahs had been removed before the storm hit, but after the water was gone, people returned to the building and salvaged whatever they could in the ruined building. Many members had lost their homes and businesses, and Jewish groups from other places brought them food. The synagogue was rebuilt at a different location to accommodate more recent demographic changes and to make it safer from hurricanes.

The synagogue lent the Jewish Center group a Torah to use during Shabbat services, when eight students read from the Torah. That first day of the trip the Torah stayed with them in the car until they checked into the hotel that evening. Tesser was appointed to hold it.

"I was put in charge of carrying around the Torah, and it sat on my lap wherever we went," he said proudly. "I felt connected to my Jewish roots having the Torah in my hands."

The students worked through Camp Coast Care, which houses volunteers for the massive Katrina cleanup; it is run through the Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi. Volunteers pay $25 a day to offset expenses for food, housing, and tools. The Jewish Center students stayed in a hotel but ate at the Camp Coast Care cafeteria with groups from AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, and others.

The students worked about 10 hours in total over three days on the shower trailer. They had to take apart wood and sheetrock, pull out nails, shovel out the collapsed roof, and remove big pieces of cabinets and siding.

The students took a side trip to New Orleans and toured the lower ninth ward, where the poor were particularly hard hit by the hurricane. Tucker observed, "It looks like the storm hit yesterday; we saw appalling, terrible, terrible wreckage." The tour guide, who lived in the ninth ward, expressed his outrage at the government and the insurance companies to the students and explained to them how the original residents had no political or financial clout.

This New Orleans segment hit Tesser most strongly, and particularly the X's on most of the houses, with numbers indicating how many people were found dead or alive inside the house. "Some of the numbers were really powerful," he said. "We saw where people died. It was a very humbling experience."

To balance the visit to the ninth ward, the students went to the French Quarter for dinner and a ghost tour, but it was the pictures of devastation that remained with them.

The students were really changed by their trip. "I think it made me a lot more appreciative of what I have," said Brian Tesser, "and I realize how fortunate I am -- to see people down there who have next to nothing and know how well off I am."

Afran saw a real change in the group after the trip. "We had been very cliquey in the past," she said. "At Tichon last week, we were all friends. We felt like we had bonded over something important and that we had done something important, and that made us friends."

Another Siyyum Tichon student, Lauren Soffen, a sophomore at Princeton High School, came home feeling inspired to do more.

"The trip left me with happiness and pride that we did this for a community," she said. "We all said that we want to go back and help more, because there is so much that can be done there. We only helped in one spot, and it would be nice if we could help and fix more things."