Today, the 9-11 Foundation asks you to share your experience with September 11 so we all with never forget that day, its challenges, or its heroes.

September 11 isn’t just about tragedy, but about the spirit of America coming together, unified, to assist and help one another. 9-11 while horrible was a shining example of what America can do when it comes together.

Today we ask Americans to share their experiences and their support for us.

Go to Facebook and follow us there. Share your personal story about that Tuesday in September or your donation.

We are also on Twitter and while there are fewer characters to work with we welcome your mentions of our work or lists like this which we think empower our friends and neighbors to take action.

Our Instagram account is relatively new, but we hope you will engage us there too if that is the platform for you.

If you can donate today to our mission we are grateful, but if not we would ask you to consider shopping using an Amazon Smile account which donates funds to us through your every day purchases.

The quickest way to make a difference is spread that message on social media to your friends. It costs you nothing and makes an enormous difference.

Tell your local schools that you want 9-11 responders speaking to your local students. Every year we speak to hundreds of school students about September 11 and how they can make a difference in their community.

We are not pushing an agenda other than the values of teamwork, family, self respect, good decision making, and the importnce of pursuing excellence. If those are lessons you want taught in your community let’s discuss how we can get into your classrooms.

We know America is better when we overcome our own differences whether they are skin color, sex, marital status, religion, and even political identification.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Share Your Experience and Support

We should never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget we can make a major difference in someone else’s life donating blood today while remembering yesterday.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Day Five: Attend A Religious Event

Day Six: Visit Your Local Police Precinct

Day Seven: Moment of Silence

Day Eight: Raise The Flag

Day Nine: Visit Your Firehouse

Day Ten: Donate

Tonight on PBS Extra Hours, Sari Beth Rosenberg will talk about how to teach 9-11 to the next generation who were not alive for the event itself.

This event will offer teachers the opportunity to use their own voice and experience to teach students about the tragedy of September 11.

Using the standards and resources of PBS’s NewsHour, PBS NewsHour Extra provides middle and high school students and teachers with quality educational resources based on current issues and events.

Extra’s mission is to help middle and high school students understand world events and national issues and answer the question, “Why should I care about the news?”

Extra helps educators spark young people’s interest in the world.

The 9-11 Foundation in our mission to never forget that day will post a link to the session after it airs so that teachers across the country can use it to develop their own plans for the classroom.

Award Winning Educator Will Teach 9-11

Sari Beth Rosenberg is an award-winning U.S. History teacher, writer, host, and public speaker.

She has been teaching for nearly two decades and currently hosts the PBS NewsHour Extra Educator Series. Sari is available to write & speak about history, politics, civics, civil rights, education, and culture.

Visit your firehouse. Today. It takes moments and like visiting your local police, it can build bridges to your public safety community.

Again, we support citizen and other responder visits to firehouses to both pay your respects and see the operational equipment used to serve neighbors where you are visiting. We wuld like to offer some suggestions on appropriate visitor behavior.

First, please ring the door bell. Even if you have decades of experience in another department – paid or volunteer – it is inappropriate to just walk in. Your visit should  take place between 9:00am and 11:00am or between 1:00pm and 5:00pm. It is inappropriate to visit during morning check out, lunch, or after business hours. You should always ring the bell and do not presume anything.

In some organizations they will have shirts or patches for sale. Many larger departments carry an in-house stock of department and house shirts, hats and patches emblazoned with their own logo. The funds earned from these items often stay in-house for staple cooking items, chairs, TVs or other non-safety items. Consider a shirt and a patch.

Finally, should a call go out while touring, know how you are going to expeditiously move out of the firehouse so the building can be secured. Do not leave anything on tables, kitchen counters, etc. and allow the fire responders to do what they do best: respond to other people’s worst day.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Visit Your Firehouse

The 9-11 Foundation will never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget we can build bridges today within our community.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Day Five: Attend A Religious Event

Day Six: Visit Your Local Police Precinct

Day Seven: Moment of Silence

Day Eight: Raise The Flag

Raise the flag. There are a few images that come to mind as we remember 9-11 and three members of the Fire Department of New York raising the American flag over the rubble has to be top three. It is an important reminder that together we can accomplish anything.

All departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the United States are instructed to fly the American flag at half-staff from sunrise until sunset on September 11. Governors of the United States and its territories and interested organizations and individuals are also encouraged to join in this observance of September 11, or Patriot’s Day as it has also become known.

Several questions exist about September 11 Patriot Day flag etiquette.

First, flags should be flown at half staff, but individuals and corporations are not required to do so. Patriot Day is one of the official days for the American flag to fly at half-staff throughout the United Stated. Every year, the sitting President issues a proclamation speaking to the significance of the day and it will specify that flags are to be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset on that day.

Only federal and state departments and agencies are required to follow the protocol outlined in the Presidential Proclamation, but the public is encouraged to participate.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Raise The Flag

We should never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget to honor one another. Raise the flag to remember 9-11, honor those who died, give tribute to those responders working today to protect us now, and stand tall like our country can.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Day Five: Attend A Religious Event

Day Six: Visit Your Local Police Precinct

Day Seven: Moment of Silence

As we begin another hectic work week we ask everyone to take a moment of silence for yourself to think about the pending anniversary of September 11.

Our world is filled with noise. Notifications of email, phone calls, text messages, and other alarms keep us constantly responding to the next beep.

Silence has its value too. First it gives our ears a much needed respite from the constant flow of information and alerts. Silence has also been shown to offer significant health advantages that boost  a person’s well-being. Silence has multiple positive physiologic benefits. They include:

• Lower blood pressure, which can help prevent heart attack.
• Boost the body’s immune system.
• Benefit brain chemistry by growing new cells. A 2013 study found that two hours of silence could create new cells in the hippocampus region, a brain area linked to learning, remembering, and emotions.
• Decrease stress by lowering blood cortisol levels and adrenaline. Furthermore, according to a 2006 study in Heart, two minutes of silence relieves tension in the body and brain and is more relaxing than listening to music. This was attributed to changes in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.
• Promote good hormone regulation and the interaction of bodily hormone-relate systems.
• Prevent plaque formation in arteries.

A moment of silence is both good for your health wise, but an opportunity to consider the challenges ahead.

In a few days many responders will be reliving the post traumatic stress of September 11. They will remember heroes like Mychal Judge. They will think about the next event they are asked to respond to in their career.

A moment of silence can be a powerful tool to strengthen all of us for the next challenge ahead.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Take A Moment of Silence

We should never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget we can make a major difference in someone else’s life donating blood today while remembering yesterday.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Day Five: Attend A Religious Event

Day Six: Visit Your Local Police Precinct

The 9-11 Foundation asks everyone to find time to visit your local police precinct.

On September 11, 2001 seventy-two law enforcement officers lost their lives from the New York Police Department, Fire Department of New York Fire Marshal’s office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Secret Service, the Port Authority, and other agencies.

There is has been a great deal of discussion in the past year about the proper role of police officers in our nation and we support accountability, proper training, and scaled response, but there is no question that those who sacrificed their lives on 9-11 were heroes not because of their death that day, but because of their commitment to the Rule of Law and responding to others’ needs.

We believe bridges are best built over conversations and that can only happen when open minds show up to both be heard and hear.

This Labor Day we encourage you to take a moment to visit your local police precinct and learn more about their operations and how you can be a citizen contributor to your local community.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Visit Your Local Police

We should never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget our opportunities to build bridges into other communities, both those who protect us and those who may challenge us.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Day Five: Attend A Religious Event

The 9-11 Foundation encourages everyone to attend a religious event to remember September 11.

The foundation does not endorse a specific church, faith, or belief, but we do recognize the selfless sacrifice of Roman Catholic priest, Father Mychal Judge, who was a chaplain for the Fire Department of New York on September 11, 2011.

Father Mychal Judge was a Franciscan friar and per a NPR report was a “true New York character.” He was born in Brooklyn in May 1933 and most would say Judge knew everyone in the city, from the homeless to the mayor.

Judge arrived at the World Trade Center shortly after the first plane hit on September 11, 2001. As firefighters and rescue personnel ran into the North Tower, he ran with them.

Father Judge is a shining example of the powerful personal motivation from acting positively on your faith and we hope everyone attends a service to consider the lives lost and how we can better represent our common humanity towards one another.

Mychal Judge spent his freshman year at the St. Francis Preparatory School in Brooklyn, where he studied under the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn.

At the age of 15, in 1948, Judge began the formation process to enter the Order of Friars Minor. He transferred to St. Joseph’s Seraphic Seminary in Callicoon, New York, the minor seminary of the Holy Name province of the Order. After graduation, he enrolled at St. Bonaventure University.

After completing his year of formation, he received the religious habit and professed his first vows as a member of the Order. At that time, he was given the religious name of Fallon Michael. He later dropped ‘Fallon’ and changed ‘Michael’ to Mychal.

He professed his solemn vows as a full member of the Order in 1958. Following this, he did his theological studies at Holy Name College Seminary in Washington, D.C. Upon completing these studies in 1961, he was ordained a priest.

After his ordination, Judge was assigned to the Shrine of St. Anthony in Boston and served various parishes there.

In 1986 he was assigned to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan, where he had first come to know the friars. He lived and worked there until his death.

Around 1971, Judge developed alcoholism, although he never showed obvious signs. In 1978, with the support of Alcoholics Anonymous, he became sober and continued to share his personal story of alcoholism to help others facing addiction.

In 1992, Judge was appointed a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. As chaplain, he offered encouragement and prayers at fires, rescues, and hospitals, and counseled firefighters and their families, often working 16-hour days. “His whole ministry was about love. Mychal loved the fire department and they loved him.”

Judge was also well known in the city for ministering to the homeless, the hungry, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, the sick, injured, and grieving, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and those alienated by society. Judge once gave the winter coat off his back to a homeless woman in the street, later saying, “She needed it more than me.”

When he anointed a man who was dying of AIDS, the man asked him, “Do you think God hates me?” Judge picked him up, kissed him, and silently rocked him in his arms.

Judge worked with St. Clare’s Hospital, which opened the city’s first AIDS ward, in order to start an active AIDS ministry. He visited hospitals and AIDS patients and their families, presided over many funerals, and counseled other prominent gay Catholics like Brendan Fay and John McNeill.

Judge continued to be an advocate for gay rights throughout the rest of his life, marching in pride parades and attending other gay events.

Even before his death, many considered Judge to be a living saint for his extraordinary works of charity and his deep spirituality.

While praying, he would sometimes “become so lost in God, as if lost in a trance that he’d be shocked to find several hours had passed.” Judge’s spiritual director, the late Jesuit John J. McNeill, observed that Judge achieved an “extraordinary degree of union with the divine. We knew we were dealing with someone directly in line with God.”

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Attend A Religious Event

Father Mychal Judge is a shining example we should never forget. He encourages all with his focus on service and consideration of others. We hope you will consider ways you can remember 9-11 and act on them not only in September 2021, but every day of the year.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Day Four: Donate Blood

Donate blood today. An important way to remember September 11 is to donate blood – a gift that can not be replaced or duplicated.

There is a constant need for a regular supply of blood because it can be stored only for a limited period of time before it must be used. Whole blood, platelets, and Packed Red Blood Cells (PRBCs) all have different storage requirements and time limits, but all too often blood banks are short of blood they need. Regular blood donation by a sufficient number of healthy people is needed to make sure we have blood products for trauma patients, pregnant women with complications at childbirth, patients with cancer, and many others.

Blood is one of the the most precious gifts anyone can give to another person – the gift of life. A decision to donate your blood can save a life, or even several if your blood is separated into its components – red cells, platelets and plasma – which can be used individually for patients with specific conditions.

Still not convinced?

There are roughly 350 million people currently live in the United States. Every year almost seven million will donate blood.

Annually, this adds up to about 13.5 million units of whole blood donated in the United States. Additionally, it is important for blood banks to maintain diversity in the blood supply. Some blood types are very rare and are likeliest to be found among people with shared ancestral origins. These donors provide a source of life saving blood supply.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Donate Blood

We should never forget 9-11, but we should also never forget we can make a major difference in someone else’s life donating blood today while remembering yesterday.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer

Day Three: Less Partisanship

Today we ask our readers and followers to try for less partisanship and lower the volume of our national conversations as we focus on how people can remember 9-11. This week we started a series focused on how people can remember 9-11.

Another memory many Americans have from September 11 attacks is how people came together immediately after the attacks in New York (NY), Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Neighbors who drove by their local police precinct or firehouse without a second thought were baking food for responders. Schools and community groups talked about how America would be united in her response. Even politicians got along for a short period of time before considering how their actions may help or hurt their own party or the opposition.

Through all of it though, we feel America  was untied, if only for a few historic moments. We hope Americans will heal their divisions and find more time for conversation and listening and less time for yelling and recriminations.

According to a Pew Research piece, partisanship continues to be the dividing line in the American public’s political attitudes, far surpassing differences by age, race and ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, religious affiliation or other factors. Yet there are substantial divisions within both parties on fundamental political values, views of current issues and the severity of the problems facing the nation.

Negative partisanship is the tendency of some voters to form their political opinions primarily in opposition to political parties they dislike. We hope that Americans are choosing their political stands not based on person or party, but on belief in issues.

There are many small ways for friends and neighbors to talk through issues in a cordial. non threatening manner. The goal of the 9-11 Foundation is to never forget that day and hope we can heal our own fractures as we lead the world.

Eleven Ways To Remember 9-11: Less Partisanship

We hope that a little less partisanship and a little more community spirit will lead our neighbors to find reasons to take CPR together or volunteer at their local school. We really are better together.

Day One: Learn CPR 

Day Two: Volunteer