Annual food drive evokes spirit of unity after Sept. 11 attacks

An annual "9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance" returned to the Intrepid Museum in New York City on Friday, attracting thousands of volunteers given time off by their employers to pack meals for those in need.

Organized by the nonprofits 9/11 Day and New York Cares, 50,000 volunteers packed 18 million meals across the country as the families of those who died gathered for memorial ceremonies, including at the 9/11 Memorial just two miles from the Intrepid. The event was billed as the largest single-day meal pack in history, involving volunteers from more than 800 companies and organizations.

This became my go-to event every Sept. 11, after I discovered it about four years ago. Writing about it has been my way of remembering that day, which I reported on while working for the Daily News, and honoring the nearly 3,000 people who died. This year came as a milestone, marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks, a passage of time that came and went quickly for many.

"It's surreal," said Richard Wald, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser and 9/11 Day board member. "In a way I know it's 25 years. I have two daughters. They're 29 and 31, and they were in pre-school on 9/11. So, I know time has passed, and it feels like in some ways, it feels like yesterday."

Volunteers got underway packing boxes of food, some dancing to the beat of '70s and '80s rock and disco just after 8 a.m., keeping the mood fun until the work paused after about an hour. "So right about now it's 9:11 a.m.," Wald told the crowd from a stage where he stood next to a bell. "So if we can just take a moment, I'm going to ring this bell for a moment of silence for all of those we lost," he said, reminding all of the pain that still lingers from the tragedy that occurred a quarter of a century ago. The crowd fell silent. About a minute later, they were back working together, evoking the spirit of unity that came in the days that followed the attacks.

Citibank had 300 volunteers on hand for the event at the Intrepid and another 800 working at different locations across the country. "I'm really proud," said Stephanie Hokman, a member of Citibank's U.S. Community Relations team, who got the crowd working by sounding a gong.

Hokman recalled where she was the morning of Sept. 11 when terrorists used commercial planes as deadly weapons to strike the World Trade Center and Pentagon: "I think about that often, especially today. It's a crazy story. I was a single mom living in my house in Hollis Hills, Queens. My daughter was waking up for school that day. She was 9 years old. And she loved school. But she came downstairs to me in my den and said, 'Mom, I'm not sick. But I just don't feel like going to school today.' So, I never do this. I said okay, I'll stay home with you. So we were on our couch in our den, and then I got the call from, I think, my brother. And he said, turn on the news. And the rest was history."

The meal packing event, especially on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, brought up a few emotions for Hokman. "It's fun. It's emotional, but it's also gratifying to know what 9/11 Day and New York Cares have done, really bringing this day of tragedy into a day of doing good for others. And that's really what it's all about. So I'm happy to be a part of that effort."

Volunteer Andy Hanson, a 38-year-old college counselor at Harlem Children's Zone, was a teenager on the day of Sept. 11. "I was in middle school. The bus was late for school, number one. And then we got in, the TV was already on," he recalled about when he first learned about the attacks.

"We all watched the second plane hit the second tower... I knew that it was something that was scary for the future of the world, but I had no concept of the unity that it would bring. Where everybody made sure they supported each other, was thinking about serving the greater good and getting together as a community."

That spirit of coming together was still resonating for him 25 years later as he pushed a cart stacked up high with large, heavy sacks of rice through a crowd at the meal packing event.

"A lot of things have happened in the world in general. I think as long as we continue to show up as individual human beings to support each other, to support each other in communities, we can make a better world," he said. "We all just need to remember each other's humanity and support each other."