Spring Break At Ground Zero

As students from across the country head to Florida for spring break, a group of students at Florida International University are heading in the opposite direction – north, to New York – for what is not your typical spring vacation. Susan Spencer reports.

This northern spring break has no sun and sand, but it does have rules. One of them is no drinking. But it also has rewards – the satisfaction of helping out as a volunteer at Ground Zero.

Freshman Jacqui Sosa and juniors Damian Dunn and Caleb Mendez are spending their spring vacation rubbing shoulders with rescue workers in the Salvation Army's 35,000-square-foot tent, known as the Taj Mahal, adjacent to Ground Zero.

The work is mundane – serving food, taking out trash and filling the hospitality racks – but the atmosphere is not. And it's not a job that just anyone can do, especially on days when a victim is recovered.

"The feeling was, 'We're going to a funeral' and that's the feeling," Caleb says, describing the atmosphere in the tent on such days. He says his father prepared him for this.

"My dad gave me specific advice," he says. "'Remember what you're doing there and what you're going for,' and that kind of helped me out a little bit."

The young volunteers are often amazed at the rescue workers' gratitude. "They thank you a lot," says Jacqui. "They do all the time, really. You give them a hash brown. 'Thank you.' Give 'em a sausage. 'Thank you' again."

Their work in the tent certainly helps bring home to the students what Sept. 11 meant, but for them, as for everyone else, nothing really compares to actually seeing where the towers once stood.

Damian knows the spot; he worked for two months in the summer at Morgan Stanley on the 73rd floor of Tower Two.

"I got sad, I got angry, but it made me certain that I really wanted to be here," he says. "It made me definitely know that this was where I wanted to be for spring break."

Caleb thought he might want to be a firefighter and now, after spending a morning in the firehouse with some of his heroes, he's sure of it. "No question about it," he says.

There is also no question that about the value of this spring-break experience.

"This is going to be history," says Caleb. "It's gonna be in my kids' history books and things like that. How it's gonna change the entire nation. And to be part of that is just incredible."

Jacqui looks at the vacation as a short-order course in life: "The greatest thing that could have ever happened to me as a person, both physically, spiritually and in every aspect."

Damian will always remember one of the signs he saw as he walked around the site one night: "Continue to aspire and persevere."

"I thought that was really beautiful," he says.