Today, MyGoodDeed.org officially launches 911dayofservice.org, a new website supporting this year's 9/11 National Day of Service. The website incorporates a powerful and innovative tool that makes it easy for individuals to find and support charitable causes that match their interests and provides a range of actions for supporting their causes.  This “powered by MyGoodDeed” application was developed in collaboration with Guidestar, Network for Good, AllForGood, and HandsOn Network. 

As part of the new website, MyGoodDeed also unveiled their 9/11 National Day of Service education program, which includes more than 20 lesson plans on 9/11 as well as “Learn and Serve” toolkits to help schools organize age appropriate service projects.  The 9/11 Memorial contributed two sets of commemorative teaching resources that, along with supplemental materials from 4 Action Initiative, Tribute WTC Visitor Center, and Education Trust, provide constructive and comprehensive tools to teach students about the events of 9/11 and inspire classrooms and families to adopt causes and perform good deeds in observance of 9/11.  More than 10,000 classrooms are expected to utilize these materials this year.

In 2009, MyGoodDeed spearheaded the first 9/11 National Day of Service, which turned out more than 5 million people in all 50 states and 165 countries, including President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, to perform acts of service to commemorate 9/11.  This year they anticipate even more and, on September 11, 2011, hope to stage the largest single day of service and volunteering in the nation’s history in honor and commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the attacks with the goal of encouraging as many as 10 million Americans to adopt and support causes, volunteer or perform good deeds.  The 9/11 Day of Service initiative is led by the 9/11 nonprofit MyGoodDeed.org, in partnership with The Corporation for National and Community Service, HandsOn Network, and the 9/11 Memorial.

By Ryan Pawling, Coordinator of Partnershiops for the 9/11 Memorial

Staff photographer Amy Dreher snaps a lot of pictures at the World Trade Center site, documenting the construction progress of the 9/11 Memorial. Amy also trains her lens on the smaller pieces that may be overlooked with a project of this magnitude. Through “The Lens: Viewing the 9/11 Memorial,” readers of The MEMO blog can share some of the unique vantage points captured by Amy.

Place message here: 9/11 Memorial construction worker John "Jay" Duddy wears a shirt created for the crews building the memorial. Working on the project is a source of great pride for the construction crews. Many place "Never Forget" stickers on their hardhats.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Staff photographer Amy Dreher snaps a lot of pictures at the World Trade Center site, documenting the construction progress of the 9/11 Memorial. Amy also trains her lens on the smaller pieces that may be overlooked with a project of this magnitude. Through “The Lens: Viewing the 9/11 Memorial,” readers of The MEMO blog can share some of the unique vantage points captured by Amy.

Surface of a reflecting pool:  On a recent afternoon in August, workers lined the 9/11 Memorial's north pool with concrete pavers. The memorial will feature 30-foot waterfalls that plunge into reflecting pools. The pavers line the surface where water collects to create the massive reflecting pools.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Come out and support the second annual World Trade Center Run to Remember on September 5.  Pictured above are former and current 9/11 Memorial staff members, who supported the event last year. 9/11 Memorial Museum Director Alice M. Greenwald is pictured on the far right.

Registration for the fundraising event is now open.  To register, visit www.wtcruntoremember.com. According to the organizers, the World Trade Center Run to Remember event is "a celebration of the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001."

The fundraising event is held on Governor's Island, where participants can run or walk.  The funding from the run supports various charitable 9/11 organizations.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

More than a million people have visited the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site at 20 Vesey St. At the preview site, they've learned more about the Memorial and Museum and the people killed on 9/11. Often times, they take something with them when they leave  - a pen, a pendant or book commorating the visit.

You can find these keepsakes and others like the "Here Is New York" book online at the Preview Site's  Museum Shop. All net proceeds from sales at the preview site goes to building and sustaining the Memorial.

Here's more about the special collection of photos found in "Here is New York."

In response to the World trade Center tragedy, and to the unprecedented flood of images that resulted from it, a unique exhibition and sale of photographs was displayed in a store front in SoHo.  "Here Is New York" was not a conventional gallery show.  It was something new, a show tailored to the nature of the event, and to the response it elicited.  The exhibition was subtitled "A Democracy of Photographs" because anyone and everyone who had taken pictures relating to the tragedy was invited to submit their images to the gallery, where they were digitally scanned, printed and displayed on the walls alongside the work of top photojournalists and other photographers.  This book contains nearly a thousand of the more than five thousand pictures that some three thousand photographers submitted for the exhibition.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Staff photographer Amy Dreher snaps a lot of pictures at the World Trade Center site, documenting the construction progress of the 9/11 Memorial. Amy also trains her lens on the smaller pieces that may be overlooked with a project of this magnitude. Through “The Lens: Viewing the 9/11 Memorial,” readers of The MEMO blog can share some of the unique vantage points captured by Amy.

Stuck in memory: A bumper sticker on a U.S. postal truck reads “I Still Heart NY,” the lowercase “Ls” are shaped like the world Trade Center’s Twin Towers. The truck is a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. The U.S. post office on Church Street was closed for years after it was damaged on 9/11.  

By Michael Frazier, Sr. Communications Manager for the 9/11 Memorial

The towering twin steel beams were once part of the facade of the World Trade Center's south tower, sheathed in smooth aluminum. Salvaged from ground zero after the 9/11 attacks, the tridents are being resurrected and will greet visitors as they enter the pavilion of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. The remnant steel became known as tridents because the beams are crowned with three prongs.

The tridents will be moved to the World Trade Center site from storage at a Queens airport hangar, where tons and tons of remnant steel has remained since the Sept. 11 destruction at WTC.  The tridents are planned to be returned to the WTC site this fall and will be installed while work on the pavilion continues. Each is about 70-feet tall and weighs 52 tons.

Read more about the tridents in the New York Daily News.

"I feel this way about it. World trade means world peace and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York ... had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace," Minoru Yamasaki, chief architect of the World Trade Center, once stated.

Pictures:Welders work on the so-called tridents that will stand in the 9/11 Memorial Museum's entry pavilion. (Photos by Lynn Rasic)

By Michael Frazier, Sr. Communications Manager for the 9/11 Memorial

A sloping ramp will lead visitors into bedrock and into the space of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Yesterday, a small group of news reporters and 9/11 victims' families members were led on a tour of the space by Memorial Museum Director Alice Greenwald and museum architects Steven Davis and Mark Wagner. The tour walked under the high-ceiling chamber, by the so-called Survivors Staircase and the Last Column.

Update: Here's the AP report. In the Wall Street Journal, Davis admitted his design approach is vastly different from a majority of museums. The so-called slurry wall and foundations box columns for the south tower are archeolgical compoenents that are part of his design as well as exhibits. "The exhibits are the icon. It's the inverse of a traditional museum in those respects," said Davis, partner of Davis Brody Bond LLP.  

By Michael Frazier, Sr. Communications Manager for the 9/11 Memorial

Alice M. Greenwald has been working in museums for more than 30 years, a job she loves immensely.

"You get to shape something from the ground up," she said.

Greenwald has been the Director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum since 2006. As director, Greenwald is responsible for creating the museum that will tell the stories of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.  She is in charge of developing programming, preparing exhibits, choosing artifacts, designing educational components, organizing and coordinating all the operational details of the museum, including overseeing the interior build-out and administration of the museum.  The museum, when it’s complete in 2012, will be adjacent to the 9/11 Memorial.

When asked why she joined the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Greenwald said she wanted the "opportunity to contribute. . . it was a challenge I couldn't pass up."

"Museums are all about the authentic," she said.  "This site itself is authentic."

Before joining the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Greenwald served as Associate Museum Director for Museum Programs for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  Greenwald has also served as Executive Director of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia; Acting Director, Curator and Assistant Curator of the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum in Los Angeles; and Curatorial Assistant at the Maurice Spertus Museum in Judaica, Chicago.

When not working at the museum, Greenwald spends time with her two children who live in Brooklyn.  She also loves to read novels and enjoys traveling around the globe.  Her recent trips include India, England, Ireland and Mexico.

By Meghan Walsh, Communications Associate for the 9/11 Memorial

Staff photographer Amy Dreher snaps a lot of pictures at the World Trade Center site, documenting the construction progress of the 9/11 Memorial. Amy also trains her lens on the smaller pieces that may be overlooked with a project of this magnitude. Through “The Lens: Viewing the 9/11 Memorial,” readers of The MEMO blog can share some of the unique vantage points captured by Amy.

After the whistle blows: The high visibility safety vests are a tale-tale sign they are construction workers. Sitting in Zuccotti Park is another clue that these are construction workers laboring at the World Trade Center site, a few yards away.  Around noon, in shady spaces surrounding the site  in lower Manhattan, passersby can often spot large groups of construction workers taking a break.

By Michael Frazier, Sr. Communications Manager for the 9/11 Memorial