High School Senior Reflects on Volunteer Experience at 9/11 Memorial

High School Senior Reflects on Volunteer Experience at 9/11 Memorial

High school senior Britney Perez, a volunteer at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, poses for a photo in her blue volunteer vest.
High school senior Britney Perez gives back at the 9/11 Memorial.

Although I don’t have a personal tie to the September 11 attacks, they have had a major effect on my life as a New Yorker. The events were undoubtedly horrific, but the 9/11 Memorial & Museum commemorate it in such a magical way. It is not recognized as a place of sadness, but as a special place of remembrance.

The Memorial staff makes each and every visitor feel comfortable and educated as they tour the museum, and these are skills that have been passed on to me from day one. When I began volunteering a little less than a year ago, I was greeted with a warm “welcome to the family.” My experiences have been just as pleasant ever since, and the lessons I’ve learned while volunteering will stick with me for a lifetime.

I was just a junior in high school when I began as a summer volunteer and now I am preparing to graduate and move on to college. The interactions I’ve had and the communication skills I’ve picked up have not only helped me in school, but have bettered me as a person. It is a spectacular feeling to know that the work I do has inspired and comforted so many people.

I would definitely recommend this volunteer opportunity to any high school student looking for something fulfilling to occupy their time. Through this position, I’ve met people from all over the world and heard irreplaceable stories about visitors’ experiences. You don’t have to be a history expert to volunteer, either. If you’re willing to learn and understand what happened on 9/11, you’ll be more than successful in your position.

I’ve met some amazing people at the Museum, and I can’t wait to see what other experiences await. Volunteering has changed my life, and I am extremely grateful to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum for providing me with this opportunity.

Learn more about volunteering with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum here.

By Britney Perez, 9/11 Memorial Volunteer

9/11 Memorial Honors Volunteers During National Volunteer Week

9/11 Memorial Honors Volunteers During National Volunteer Week

Dozens of volunteers, primarily older adults, are seen onstage at the Museum auditorium during the National Volunteer Week ceremony and reception. A blue curtain behind them has the 9/11 Memorial & Museum logo projected on it.
Volunteers are honored during the National Volunteer Week ceremony and reception in the Museum's auditorium. Photo by Monika Graff, 9/11 Memorial.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum kicked off National Volunteer Week on Monday evening with a special reception honoring the institution’s many volunteers.

All week long, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum will be hosting special activities for its volunteers. Additionally, live talks given by Museum docents are scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday at noon.  During these “Our Service, Our Story” talks, Museum docent volunteers will discuss their 9/11 experience and their reasons for giving back.

You can learn more about volunteering at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum here.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Iraq War Veteran Remembers Volunteer Effort at Ground Zero

Iraq War Veteran Remembers Volunteer Effort at Ground Zero

A photograph by Jeffrey Keating shows the Twin Towers from below on September 10, 2001. Sunlight shines on one of the towers. The other is cloaked in shadow.
Jeffrey Keating’s photo of the Twin Towers taken on Sept. 10, 2001. Courtesy of Jeffrey Keating.

Before the towers came down, former Battery Park City resident Jeffrey Keating used to cut through the World Trade Center plaza daily to attend his classes at Pace University. He remembers how he used to sometimes lay his hand on the concrete façade of the northwest corner of the South Tower and look up, marveling at its size, how it contained universes of people.

On Sept. 10, 2001, a friend from California was visiting and asked Keating to “take her somewhere magical.” He took her to the World Trade Center, and laid on his back on the asphalt to take a photo of the towers reaching into the sky, a photo that he still has.

Many people who lived in New York before 9/11 have a personal relationship with the Twin Towers, but Keating’s runs deep. From visiting the towers as a kid with his father, to living in lower Manhattan as an undergraduate, to joining the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero, to deploying to Iraq, the significance of the World Trade Center looms large for Keating.

Keating, 39, now works and lives in the Boston area. He hails from a long line of Navy men. He always knew he wanted to serve, but when the time came, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps reserves while he completed his undergraduate degree. As part of our Salute to Service week, we’re highlighting Keating’s personal history, which is keenly interwoven with the events of 9/11 and its repercussions.

By all accounts, it was a beautiful early morning on Sept. 11, 2001—what pilots call “severe clear”—a far cry from the downpour that had soaked Keating on his way home to Long Island from a Jamiroquai concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom the night before.

The school year had just started, and he left home early that morning to buy his textbooks at Borders bookstore in 5 World Trade Center. When Keating’s Long Island Railroad train trundled into Jamaica Center and he saw black smoke trailing from the New York skyline, he immediately comprehended that a terrorist attack was underway.

“I wanted to be [downtown] the moment the towers were hit,” he remembers. But train service was stalled. He asked passersby for a ride into the city and even contemplated running from Queens to lower Manhattan, about 12 miles away. Eventually, he boarded a train bound for Minneola, Long Island, found his mother at her office and asked her to give him a ride home to collect his medical kit and change into his Marine Corps uniform.

He finally managed to get on a train that was operating exclusively for emergency service personnel, and when he arrived at Penn Station, he proceeded to run to the World Trade Center site. He passed St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village and saw dozens of medical personnel outside assembling a makeshift triage, clearly expecting an overflow of injured patients.

Keating arrived at the World Trade Center site after both buildings had collapsed and joined the search for survivors.

“I wanted to find every face I had walked by in that neighborhood,” he said.

Instead, he found isolated yet eerily relevant objects in the rubble: a black-and-white headshot of Fiduciary Trust Company International’s CEO Anne Tatlock—scraped, but intact—and a New York City landmarks souvenir that prominently featured the Twin Towers. In both instances, the remarkable condition of these small, seemingly vulnerable objects, compared to the vast destruction that surrounded him, motivated Keating to save them.

Keating was at Ground Zero when 7 World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m., and he took shelter from the raining debris in a nearby subway station. He remained at Ground Zero until 11 p.m. that night. Riding the LIRR train home that night, he saw rows of dazed faces of his fellow passengers. Some took notice of his Marine Corps uniform and approached him with photos of loved ones, wondering if he’d seen them.

Jeffrey Keating giving an interview in the early evening on Sept. 11, 2001.Jeffrey Keating giving an interview in the early evening on Sept. 11, 2001.

Keating returned to Ground Zero at 4 a.m. on September 12 with his staff sergeant and fellow Marines and joined the bucket brigade, where workers stood shoulder to shoulder and passed debris from person to person to unearth victims in the rubble. He spent the day climbing down into voids and being thwarted by occasional fires that were still burning strong beneath the rubble. Using hammers to tap on fallen beams, he attempted to communicate with trapped survivors to no avail.

After hours of effort, an airhorn sounded to alert responders of a possible building collapse. Work stopped, and he found himself at a nearby bar where firefighters were offering solemn toasts to their fallen colleagues while people prayed, cried or sat in stunned silence.

“It was one of the most emotional things I’d ever experienced,” Keating recalls. For the first time, he realized the gravity of it all, that it wasn’t going away. When he stepped out onto the street, he remembers, “It felt like stepping out onto the moon.”

Keating had intended on enrolling in Officer Candidates School once his studies at Pace were completed. But after 9/11, he withdrew his application. He knew he would be deployed and wanted to stay with his unit. In 2004, Keating was deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, in support of “Operation Phantom Fury,” a joint American, Iraqi and British offensive. He served in Iraq for nine months.

Keating still dreams about the World Trade Center but not his days at Ground Zero. In the dreams, the towers stretch into the sky, speakers in the Callery pear trees play soft elevator music and people walk swiftly across the plaza, just as he remembered.

“I would have dreams about it and wouldn’t want to wake up,” Keating said. “It was so beautiful.”

By Anne Dellinger, Digital Content Manager, 9/11 Memorial & Museum

9/11 Memorial Volunteers Share Why They Give Back

9/11 Memorial Volunteers Share Why They Give Back

Docent Jeanmarie Hargrave poses for a photo on the ground level of the 9/11  Memorial Museum.
Docent Jeanmarie Hargrave inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Photo by Jin Lee.

After losing her brother T.J. Hargrave on Sept.11, volunteer Jeanmarie Hargrave has found healing in sharing the stories of that day with visitors as a 9/11 Memorial Museum docent.

"People really feel when they’re here," said Hargrave. "You know they’re leaving with something."

Joe de Blasio lost a friend in the attacks and was inspired to volunteer as a way to give back. Even educating Museum visitors about structural artifacts like the World Trade Center steel beams, he said, has brought people together and sparked meaningful conversations. 

As a docent, de Blasio has enjoyed speaking with visitors from around the world and those of his granddaughter’s generation who have no memory of the attacks. "People are really interested in why this event happened," he said.

Hargrave also has found it meaningful to interact with visitors from other countries as a volunteer. "People came from around the world to volunteer at ground zero after 9/11," she said. "There are so many beautiful stories to be told about people helping one another. It’s personal for all of us."

Melissa Narain, a criminology student at John Jay College interested in pursuing a homeland security graduate degree, decided to volunteer in visitor services after seeing a flyer at school.

"Here you can really see what our city and our people have been through, and how strong New York City has been," she said.

In recognition of National Volunteer Week from April 10 through 16, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum thanks its dedicated volunteers and encourages others to get involved. Events for current and prospective volunteers will take place throughout the week, including an opening ceremony and a recruitment table with information about volunteer opportunities.

Also this week, Museum visitors are invited to attend special live talks led by Museum docents in the auditorium weekdays at noon. Each talk will discuss the docent’s personal connection to 9/11, a Museum artifact that embodies that connection, and why he or she volunteers. The live talks are free with Museum admission.

Click here for more information about volunteering.

By Kaylee Skaar, 9/11 Memorial Communications Manager

Remembering Red Cross Volunteer Who Witnessed History at Ground Zero

Remembering Red Cross Volunteer Who Witnessed History at Ground Zero

An access badge belonging to Rolla “Bud” Crick is displayed on a white surface. The badge features the logo of the American Red Cross across the top of it. The bottom of the badge reads, “Full Access and Ground Zero.”
Rolla "Bud" Crick's ground zero access badge. Gift of Rolla Bud Crick.

The smoldering debris at ground zero transported the late Rolla “Bud” Crick back in time to August 1946 when he was a combat reporter for the Army Air Corps. He was on the ground in Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb dropped. Now at the World Trade Center, he would again be a part of history as an American Red Cross spokesman and volunteer.    

"When 9/11 happened, I called my wife Eleanor and said, ‘You know, I was in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb and Yokohama after the blockbuster bombing. Now I'm standing here looking at this devastation on our nation's own soil’” Crick, who died at age 95 in 2013, said, according to a report in The Oregonian, where he once worked as a reporter.  “I had the disheartening realization that this too was a man-made attack."

His tour at ground zero was one of 24 that the then 85-year-old former newsman sWalk of Bears at Pier 94. Photo by Bud Crick.erved before retiring from the Red Cross in 2003. Before his death, he donated to the 9/11 Memorial Museum the ID badge he wore granting him access to the World Trade Center site.

The access badge is on view and symbolizes the work of the American Red Cross and speaks to the way that the best of humanity mobilized when confronted with the worst. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, he also worked for the Oregon Journal over his 42-year career as a journalist.

 Crick had covered some of history’s significant moments. He was there for peace talks in Panmunjom years after the Korean War. In 1957, he was the first reporter to travel to the South Pole to cover a story about Emperor Penguins. He went to Vietnam in 1975 shortly after the communists took Saigon. When he retired, he began volunteering with the Oregon chapter of the Red Cross as a public information officer.

As one of 6,000 volunteers activated by the American Red Cross, Crick spent 57 days in New York City on three separate assignments between September 2001 and March 2002. He wrote press releases about the disaster relief agency’s efforts and arranged interviews with victims’ families.

The Red Cross was active in staffing the Family Assistance Center established at Pier 94 for families to go for information and support. Crick was moved to write about a corridor at the pier that was lined with donated teddy bears, missing posters and artwork. In a piece titled “Tears Flow Along ‘Walk of Bears’ in New York,” Crick would write one of his final stories about these teddy bears.

By Jenny Pachucki, 9/11 Memorial Content Strategist

 

Seeing Eye Dogs Make Visitors Feel Welcome During Chance Meeting

Seeing Eye Dogs Make Visitors Feel Welcome During Chance Meeting

IMG_8261.jpg
Courtesy photo

On Christmas Eve, two seeing-eye-dogs-in-training, Celine and Kelly, came with their puppy raisers to the 9/11 Memorial. Prior to training at Seeing Eye’s Morristown, N.J. center, these dogs are cared for in the homes of volunteers from the age of 7 weeks until they are 16 to 18 months. The puppy raisers, Carolyn Finkelstein and Peggy Grow, visited the 9/11 Memorial to honor the memory of the victims of 9/11. Finkelstein explains, “Part of being a puppy raiser is exposing your dog to the world where it will eventually lead a blind person.”

Celine and Kelly had a chance meeting with a group of eight blind adults visiting the memorial from Italy. Not wishing to expose their canine companions to a long airplane voyage, the group decided not to bring their seeing eye dogs. Instead, they were escorted by human guides. Celine and Kelly helped make this group of visitors feel at home. When introduced to the dogs, the Italians wanted to know their names, their breeds, and their colors. They knelt down to pet the dogs and were rewarded with tail wagging and “kisses.”

As service dogs often do, Celine and Kelly erased barriers of language and nationality and reinforced the 9/11 Memorial as a place of global reach and healing.

-Amy Weisser, Director of Exhibition Development for the 9/11 Memorial Museum

 

 

New Yorkers recognize 9/11 response by Helping Arkansas Tornado Survivors Rebuild

 

A volunteer organization born out of the 9/11 is helping to coordinate one of the largest volunteer service events in Arkansas. Earlier this month, The New York Says Thank You Foundation worked jointly with the Polk County Arkansas Long Term Recovery Committee and the Polk County 4-H Foundation to bring hundreds of volunteers from New York City and across the country to help rebuild Mena, Ark.

The rural town is about 140 miles west of Little Rock, Ark., the state's capitol city.  The town was devastated by a tornado on April 9, 2009 that killed three of the town's residents. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and damaged. To mark the 9th anniversary of 9/11, New York Says Thank You partner with the local organizations and volunteers across the country to help rebuild the town.

Jeff Parness of New York Says Thank You is traveling the nation to restore a U.S. flag recovered from ground zero. Ashen, tattered and blowing in the wind, the torn flag was recovered after the World Trade Center crumbled.  The flag was stitched back together several years later and grew into a symbol that reinforces the same commitment to service and volunteerism experienced across the country and world on Sept. 12, 2001.

On the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the flag will embark on a national tour to be restitched to its original glory. The first stop for the National 9/11 Flag was Mena.

After the flag makes its journey across America, it will return to New York City, where it will be added to the permanent collection of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

By New York Says Thank You

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