This weekend, Joseph is on a school trip with the 6th grade to visit Hershey Park in PA. They also stopped and visited the United flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, PA. The trip has been done for several years, stopping in Shanksville every year as well. This year, though, they had some neat opportunities. The school teamed up with a group called, "93 cents for Flight 93." It is a grassroots organization which is working to raise the funds for a permanent memorial at the site. They had some amazing speakers come...more on that in a second. Also, they got a full military escort from the school to the memorial, about 4 hours away. The group was filming footage of them, and will use it for their campaign. On Thursday, David Beamer, father of Todd "Let's Roll" Beamer, came and spoke to the middle schoolers. Then in the evening, he spoke at a community gathering. I took the older three kids to hear him speak. Emma and Joe were at soccer practice. It was very moving, to say the least. It brought back all the emotions of that day. Anyone who is old enough knows exactly what I mean. My kids were too young to remember, but I feel that it is so important for them to understand the things that went on that day.
Just a cute side note. Jacob and Katie were almost 3, and Joseph was 4 on 9/11/2001. "The Star Spangled Banner" was played everywhere, all the time for several months after that. Katie picked up the song--no small feat for a barely-3-year-old. We went to the dentist about that November, and she sat there in the chair, wearing the little sunglasses they give the kids to protect their eyes from the bright lights, and she belted out the national anthem. The ladies in the office thought it was amazing. Six months later, when we went back for our next check up, they remembered her as the little girl who could sing the national anthem.
Anyway, Mr. Beamer spoke about the need to raise $2 million more by October. That is because that is the amount that is needed to be able to construct phase 1. They will not begin construction on a phase until they have all the money in place. Very fiscally responsible. In order to have phase 1 done by the 10th anniversary, they need to break ground by October. I can hardly believe that anniversary is coming up so soon. Flight 93 gets the least mention in the history books, but as Mr. Beamer pointed out, it was the one battle that ended in victory. The terrorists' plans were foiled. The current memorial is very makeshift--a chainlink fence basically, with port-a-potties, and accessed by a gravel road. I feel that this group is a very worthwhile one, and that the heroes of that flight deserve a more fitting tribute. Here is a link to their site:
http://www.honorflight93.org/Even if you don't feel you can donate anything at all, please do visit their site which honors those people who took on the terrorists.
I will have some pictures after the weekend, assuming Joseph brings the camera back in one piece, of Mr. Beamer's visit, as well as Joseph's photos of the memorial. Today, he is enjoying beautiful weather at the amusement park. They are supposedly doing some sort of physics stuff with the roller coasters.
