by Rosemarie
Colombraro
This weekend marks the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks on American soil, which claimed the lives of nearly
3,000 people. Within a year of the tragedy, more than $2 billion
in donations was raised, and hundreds of charitable organizations
were created to assist victims and their families.
Events to commemorate the lives lost are underway, including the
construction of memorials at sites desecrated when terrorists commandeered
four commercial airplanes and flew two of them into the World Trade
Center towers in New York and one into the Pentagon near Washington,
D.C.
It's believed that resistance from passengers and crew against their
hijackers caused the fourth plane, United Flight 93, to crash; the
wreckage was found in a field near Shanksville, Pa. "In that
one act, people who had been strangers, who never expected to be
involved in fighting a war, managed on Day One of this new kind
of war to strike back," says Phil Craig, producer of the docudrama
"The Flight That Fought Back," which airs on the anniversary
this Sunday (Discovery Channel, 9 p.m. ET). To view designs for
a permanent memorial, visit flight93memorialproject.org.
Other 9/11-related plans:
The New York City-based non-profit One Day's Pay hopes to establish
9/11 as a national day of service. For information, go to onedayspay.org.
Visitors to Ground Zero in New York can buy A Pilgrim's Walking
Tour of Ground Zero: Stories From the 9/11 Recovery Community, a
CD and map for a mile-long tour starting at St. Paul's Chapel on
Fulton Street ($15 at the chapel gift store; to order, call 800-229-3788
or visit courage911.com).
Bashas' supermarkets in Arizona are selling $5 limited-edition pins,
right, to help fund a memorial on the Phoenix Capitol Mall (az911memorial.com).
The Pentagon Memorial is to feature a reflecting pool on 1.93
acres of the Pentagon's southwest lawn, with 184 benches honoring
those killed at the Pentagon and aboard Flight 77 (pentagonmemorial.net).
Construction of a building and memorial at the former site of the
World Trade Center is expected to begin next year. The 77-floor
Freedom Tower, is planned to reach a height of 1,776 feet, symbolic
of the year the American Colonies declared freedom. The new World
Trade Center Transit Hub is set to open in 2009.
Penn State Mont Alto Forestry Club will plant trees this weekend
as a living memorial to 9/11 victims.
The Bear Search and Rescue Foundation will honor service dogs, like
those that worked at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, with its Search
and Rescue Dog Day next Saturday at New York's Intrepid Sea, Air
& Space Museum (intrepidmuseum.com). Renowned animal researcher
Jane Goodall is scheduled to speak. |
