For Eric Hyde, spring break is not about getting three shades darker and three sheets to the wind, but is a time to heighten awareness about the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

The Kansas University sophomore and local musician and filmmaker Oliver Hall have teamed up to make a film about New Orleans and document the rebuilding efforts in the city crushed by the hurricane seven months ago.

The pair joined a Lawrence aid group, Waves of Relief, to not only observe what is going on through the lens, but actively help the rebuilding while gaining hands-on experience for their film.

“I want people to be aware of what’s going on in New Orleans,” Hyde said. “My goal is just showing what it’s really like there so people can feel New Orleans and their present situation. The more people talk about this crisis, the better things are going to get.”

Hall came up with the idea to document the different stages of progress in the rebuilding of New Orleans. Hyde already had made plans to help an old carpenter move to New Orleans, where he wanted to spend his remaining years. Hall asked Hyde to shoot some footage of the destruction in the city.

Hyde said the reality of what had happened began to sink in as he traveled closer and closer to the city.

“I got out of my car at one point in an area called Lakeview, which is really close to where the levee broke, and I looked around. It reminds you of a war zone. You’re kind of shocked to see this stuff and you also feel kind of motivated like you have to do something.”

Oliver Hall, left, a local filmmaker, and Kansas University sophomore Eric Hyde will be going to New Orleans over Hyde's spring break to document the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the effort to rebuild the city.

So Hyde did something. He pulled out his camera and began to shoot.

He crouched down to capture a particular shot and began slowly zooming in on the devastation. As the camera zoomed in, Hyde said, the visible destruction began to get worse and worse.

Hall and Hyde met at the premiere of Hall’s first movie last summer, coincidentally titled “Flood.” There was an instant connection as both discussed the kind of movies they wanted to create.

“We want to do films that matter,” Hall said. “Something that has a social impact and that will last a long time. So when we are old men our grandkids can see it and say, ‘That’s beautiful.'”

Hyde said this was a way for him to do something good with his time and not spend it doing the same thing and doing nothing.

Other students from the university also are taking an active role getting involved with community service over the break.

Alternative Breaks, a service learning organization at KU, provides students opportunities to volunteer not just for the satisfaction of doing meaningful work with the community, but also for college credit. The program includes opportunities for students to help during winter break and weekends throughout the school year.

Melissa Shippy, a Wichita junior at KU, is one of two undergraduates helping teach the two-credit class called ‘special projects in the community,’ which is directly connected to the school’s alternative break program. Shippy has been involved with KU’s alternative breaks office over the last two years. This year she is one of the spring coordinators. She and a group of six other students will travel to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota to help tutor and mentor children.

There are approximately 30 students enrolled in the class and more than 60 students participating in some form of an alternative break.

The program started in 1995 with an alternative spring break in El Paso, Texas.

The new programs this year are “Give Kids the World,” which offers students a chance to help terminally ill children, and “Best Friends Animal Sanctuary,” which gives students a chance to rehabilitate domesticated animals.

Many of the animals that will be helped this year are strays found in Louisiana after Katrina struck, Shippy said.

Local churches also provide alternative opportunities to volunteer.

Ecumenical Christian Ministries offers five different trips for students this March. Students will be able to go to northwestern New Mexico and help clear irrigation ditches or work in medical clinics. Students also can go to Star Mountain, northeast of Flagstaff, Ariz., where volunteers will help Ida Clinton, a Dine tribe elder, and her daughter Rose. The ECM also offers alternative break trips to New York City, El Papaturro, El Salvador, and Juarez, Mexico.