Hopewell Valley Emergency Services Unit specialists Deron Williams and Andrew Fosina transport a piece of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center wreckage to Hopewell Valley Central High School Sept. 11, 2014, where it is to serve as a memorial of the 2001 terrorist attacks. (Photo by Alicia Brooks-Waltman.)
By Alicia Brooks-Waltman
Hopewell Valley Central High School students, who were infants and toddlers when the World Trade Center towers fell to the ground after terrorist attacks, now have a powerful reminder of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.
On the 13th anniversary of the attack, members of Hopewell Valley Emergency Services Unit transported a piece of the wreckage of the towers to the school’s media center/library, where it will stay until this time next year. In a somber ceremony, firefighters, EMTs and police officers marched through a hallway in the school, and stood at attention in the media center with students. There, the glass-encased piece was installed on a table and a bell was rung three times as a solemn memorial to those who lost their lives, especially emergency service personnel.
Mike Chipowsky, former Hopewell Township Police Chief and Chairman of the Hopewell Valley Sept. 11 and Emergency Services Memorial Committee, told students the memorial had specific meaning for them.
“Memorials such as these, and the much larger one in Alliger Park, are not built for those who remember those days, but for you who have a limited memory of those events,” said Mr. Chipowsky. “Today, we place this sacred artifact here in your care with the hope that you will never forget what happened that day.”
“We felt helplessness that day as we stood and watched the towers fall,” recalled Principal Mike Daher to the crowd. “The firefighters and police gave us a new set of heroes to root for. They gave us hope in the darkness.”
The steel, which the emergency personnel first brought to the Valley in 2009, has been displayed in several public places as a memorial. The piece has spent time in the Hopewell Township Municipal Complex, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch complex, and last year at the Capital Health Medical Center – Hopewell. On Sept. 10, emergency personnel picked up the memorial and readied it for the Sept. 11 ceremony at the school.
The steel will remain at the school until Sept. 10, 2015, when it likely will be picked up and made ready for transport to another public venue.
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