Like thousands of Americans, teachers at Baldwin High School are deeply affected by the dwevastation caused to communities along the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina.

From day one, they started thinking -- and daydreaming -- about ways to help victims of the storm.

"We said, 'Wouldn't it be nice to go down there and hand out water?' " said Richard Yount, an English teacher, recalling early conversations in the teachers' break room.

Instead of idle water-cooler talk, a handful of Baldwin-Whitehall teachers formed a Hurricane Katrina Relief Committee and decided to find a school district that needed help.

They settled on the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District, a district with a Web address that sounds like it should be Baldwin-Whitehall's: www.bwsd.org.

The Bay St. Louis-Waveland area was among the hardest hit on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and one of the slowest to recover.

"One school was blown away and another was gutted," said Mr. Yount. He said students in those Gulfport communities just returned to school Nov. 7 in one school building, where two shifts of classes are operating.

With the support of Whitehall Council and the Baldwin-Whitehall School District, the teachers are pushing ahead with what they hope will be a long-term adoption project, one that will involve students, residents and community leaders in efforts to find real ways to help Hurricane Katrina victims in that Gulf Coast district.

"The whole idea is to have a targeted response," said Joe Murray, a physical education teacher who found the Mississippi school district on the Internet.

"We want this to translate into something to get the kids excited, so it is a learning experience," he said.

Both Whitehall Council and the Baldwin-Whitehall School District have endorsed the teachers' plan.

Last Saturday, Mr. Yount and Tim Laughlin, a physical education teacher, flew to Mississippi on a Leer jet to visit the school district and do a preliminary assessment.

The jet was provided by Whitehall Councilwoman Linda Book's employer, Corporate Air, which has been involved in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts from the beginning.

"We went from asking, 'How can we get involved,' to an unbelievable range of individual ideas," said Mr. Yount, 52, who has been teaching for 30 years.

Even before visiting the devastated region, they learned in a phone call with a federal coordinator what sort of aid was not needed in the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District.

"She said, 'Please, no backpacks. We have 3,000 backpacks and 2,200 kids,' " said Mr. Yount.

But they also learned that the high school band lost all of its uniforms and instruments and the district, which has plenty of consumable items, such as Gatorade, doesn't have basic commodities like desk blotters and staplers.

They also learned that someone had donated a forklift to the school district, but the district needed additional equipment to use it.

So, using money that has been raised thus far through student events and community support, Mr. Yount purchased some equipment that the school district requested.

On Sunday, he packed his personal vehicle with the equipment, a pallet jack, which he described as a "forklift without power," a hand jack and some dollies. He also brought along 110 turkeys so families could have a Thanksgiving feast.

He left for the long drive to Mississippi, where he will stay until Dec. 3.

Mr. Murray will be joining him the day after Thanksgiving. Both men will drive back together.

The Baldwin-Whitehall School District approved the project and will provide substitute teachers to cover for the men while they are in Mississippi.

At its November meeting, Whitehall council passed a resolution adopting the two Mississippi communities.

Already, Mr. Yount said, a wide range of people say they are ready to be part of the "adopt-a-school-district plan," including teachers, Whitehall Councilwoman Book, Mayor Jim Nowalk and his wife, and student organizations at the high school.

"It has become an all-encompassing project to draw in as many resources as we can. We not only want to help these communities but to make a connection between the Baldwin-Whitehall School District and the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District," Mr. Yount said.

"We want to figure out what they need and figure out how we can get the rest of the community involved," Mr. Murray said.

"It is a fluid project. It just keeps evolving."