SFP in USA Commemorates the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 with Service

September 12, 2011

Service For Peace in Kentucky, Connecticut and Florida honored the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance through a number of volunteer projects.

Service For Peace in Louisville, KY partnered with Home Depot to do six service projects at firehouses in Louisville & New Albany on Friday & 50 firehouses throughout the country over the 9/11 weekend! We did landscaping and beautifying at the firehouses as a way to honor our first responders and the great work they do for our local communities and our country!

Home Depot mobilized over 1,000 volunteers around the country and provided a $50,000 grant to pay for the supplies!

"The work you did at our firehouses last year was much appreciated by our firefighters" said Chief Greg Fredericks, Louisville Fire Division.

Usually, Capt. Larry Welcher of Louisville Fire & Rescue and his colleagues would be doing the work instead of watching. Firefighters are responsible for landscaping firehouses, Welcher said. They can prune shrubs and trees and mow the lawn along the well-traveled Winter Avenue, but there's little budget for the kind of intensive landscaping that took place Friday morning, Welcher said.
If not for these volunteers, "this wouldn't get done," Welcher said.

Here are some media reports:

• The Courier-Journal - Louisville
• The Courier-Journal - New Albany
• WDRB
• WAVE3
• WHAS11

To read full media report click here.

On Sunday, September 11, 2011, SFP in Fairfield County, Connecticut held its first 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance commemorating the 10-year anniversary since 9/11. Seventy-five students from the University of Bridgeport (UB), staff and community members attended the event. The service program started with a commemoration that included a singing of the National Anthem by UB student Malakhi Eason, poem readings, reading of names of 9/11 victims, and a moment of silence for all of the victims who were lost on September 11, 2001. UB students, professors and staff lost family, friends and loved ones on that day, including one UB professor who lost both his sons.

Participants then had a choice of two service activities, making books for children of military families and writing letters to our deployed service officials. While participants worked on their service projects they participated in a guided discussion about their memories, thoughts and feelings surrounding September 11th. At the day's close, participants inscribed messages of peace onto a Peace Pole that will be displayed in the University of Bridgeport's Student Center.

Service For Peace in Miami commemorated the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, September 10th, 2011 at Amelia Earhart Park in Miami-Dade County. The day of service brought together over 300 volunteers from various volunteers from Service For Peace, AARP, Miami Dade College, Florida International University, Broward College, local high schools, La Nueva Radio Station staff and listeners, DHL, IBM, Boy Scouts of America and others.

The volunteers were divided into 14 teams that focus in one needed area of the massive public park. These teams were lead by a park staff member and paired with a team leader, whose role was to facilitate ice breaker and reflection activities. The projects that the teams completed included, landscaping , planting in the park's entrance and main office, painting of the sports complex, clean-ups of the park including its lakes which was done by having volunteers on canoes.

One of our team leaders, Mitch Rodriguez, reflects "We all on this day remember the events that transpired a decade ago, and we all recognize that we will never forget them, but for three and a half hours on that Saturday afternoon we made a difference and we stood united as one, just like the United States of America did on that grim September morning."

For more information about the 9/11 Day of Service, please visit the official website at http://911day.org/.