Pete Esau, a freshman at Bishop Seabury Academy, loads a truck with Salvation Army boxes of holiday season gift items. Bishop Seabury students were sorting and helping to move the boxes to a new storage facility Monday. Several Bishop Seabury students are volunteering their time doing various service projects this week on their spring break. The group assisted Monday at The Salvation Army.

While some students spend their spring breaks watching TV, playing or sleeping, about a dozen students from Bishop Seabury Academy opted to help the homeless.

The students helped unload and sort through boxes Monday for The Salvation Army, where they will serve lunch today, and are collecting nonperishable food donations for its shelter.

Donnie Hornberger, Salvation Army community relations director, was thrilled to have the extra help in unloading four semitrailers of boxes at The Salvation Army’s storage building near 19th Street and Haskell Avenue.

“Honestly, I don’t know how we would have emptied the trucks,” Hornberger said. “It would be five or six staff people without the students.”

The students also pitched tents outside their school, 4120 Clinton Parkway, where they were accepting donations for The Salvation Army through Wednesday. The shelter needs baby food, formula, diapers, paper towels, tissues, peanut butter, jelly, boxed meals and other nonperishable food items.

Bishop Seabury teacher Bill Gollier said he organized the event because Salvation Army donations tend to drop in the spring.

Hornberger said events like this could help turn around the food pantry’s position.

“It was starting to get low, but with these guys and another food drive this weekend, hopefully we will get stocked back up,” he said.

The students said they were eager to be a part of the turnaround.

“There are so many homeless people in Lawrence,” said Arielle Spiridigliozzi, a Bishop Seabury student. “We want to be able to help the less fortunate.”

Shannon O’Shea, a Bishop Seabury student, said she hopes their message reaches the Lawrence community.

“There’s a lot of work to be done. We just need to get to it,” she said.