NATCHEZ — Mardi Gras season lasts almost two months, but busy hands at Pleasant Acre Day School spend all year preparing piles of one of the most enduring symbols of the annual celebration.

The school’s seven students sort through purple, gold, green, blue and other colored shiny beads donated to the school to resell as a fundraiser for an annual summer trip to Biloxi, director Mary Ann Foggo-Eidt said.

“We get beads from Mobile, (Ala.), Galveston, (Texas), New Orleans and all over south Louisiana and of course from Natchez,” Foggo-Eidt said.

The students at Pleasant Acre, a learning center for adults with special needs, sort through the beads and organize them first based on color then by length and diameter. The students then package the beads to be sold.

“We’ve been doing this for 25 years or so, and it started off very, very small,” Foggo-Eidt said. “The community has just embraced us.”

Sorting and packaging the beads allows the school’s students to use and develop their skills, Foggo-Eidt said.

“They really have to focus … and they’re using a lot of their senses to sort through all of the beads,” she said. “They’re learning skills they’re not even aware they’re learning.”

Since the beads business has grown quite a lot for Pleasant Acre through the years, the amount of beads to sort and package is sometimes overwhelming.

“But they just plow right through it,” Foggo-Eidt said.

When bead buyers come in the Beads Galore Shop, Foggo-Eidt said her students are overcome with excitement.

“They know that means money for our trip,” she said. “They look forward to Biloxi all year; it’s just such an anticipated event.”

The students eat out at their favorite seafood restaurants, take in shows at casinos and go swimming while in Biloxi. They have stayed at the Quality Inn by the Mississippi Coast Coliseum for several years, Foggo-Eidt said.

“We’re just so at home there, and they’re so accommodating,” she said. “They’ll pick up our tab when we get pizza or something. The Coast has been so good to us. It’s like angels are flying around us. One year we went down there, and every time we ate out, someone, unbeknownst to us, paid for our ticket.

“It’s so heartwarming to know there are so many good people in the world and they pay it forward.”

The trip wouldn’t be possible, Foggo-Eidt, if Mardi Gras revelers in the Miss-Lou didn’t “pay it forward.”

Foggo-Eidt said several krewes from the community, as well as local schools, buy beads from Pleasant Acre.

“We have people come from Woodville, Monterey and even New Orleans,” she said. “One lady sent family she had in Natchez to buy beads from us to bring back to New Orleans once she found out how cheap they were.

“We are just so appreciative of everyone who buys and donates beads and makes our trip possible.”

The Beads Galore Shop in Pleasant Acre is open from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Beads are packaged six or a dozen to a bag priced at $1.

In addition to beads, the shop has cups, doubloons and other Mardi Gras throws and trinkets.

Anyone wishing to purchases items after hours can do so by making an appointment with Foggo-Eidt. She can be reached at 601-442-2264.

The school is off of Liberty Road behind the National Guard Armory in Natchez.