The St. Louis region has a long list of events in store that will offer fitting and moving ways to remember the great losses the nation suffered on Sept. 11, 2001.
On Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the attacks, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department will sponsor a candlelight vigil at Kiener Plaza. It starts at 7:45 p.m., preceded by a musical program at about 6 p.m., which will include performances by the St. Louis County Police Department bagpipers, a Marine Corps Band from Albany, Ga., and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Tribute Choir.
During the day, the St. Louis Fire Department will hold the Great Fire Engine Rally’s Memorial Walk of Honor on Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard at the Mississippi Riverfront directly below the Gateway Arch. There will be a one-mile remembrance walk in O’Fallon, Mo., as a tribute to military veterans.
The police and fire department tributes are fitting memorials to the police officers and firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11. The United Way of Greater St. Louis and its partners are offering St. Louisans a special way to express their sense of national unity through volunteer service.
The concept of a day of service was introduced in 2002 by families of 9/11 victims and support groups. In 2009, Congress designated Sept. 11 as a “National Day of Service and Remembrance.”
In St. Louis, the United Way program spreads the service opportunities over more than a week — from Monday through Sept. 15. You could work at a children’s home, receive and organize donations at a violence-prevention center or food bank, participate in a blood drive or help to beautify streets, parks and community gardens. They are among many projects organized throughout the region.
The goal is to engage more than 1,000 volunteers during the week — as the United Way has done with two service days earlier this year, one held to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January and one to recognize St. Louis Service Day in April.
One thousand volunteers should be a piece of cake, particularly because thousands of Tea Party activists from throughout the Midwest are set to descend on St. Louis to hold a rally at the Gateway Arch on Sunday.
That falls right in the middle of the St. Louis week of service. Tea Party leaders are better known for their strongly conservative views than for their advocacy for the kind of bipartisan unity the nation embraced in the aftermath of 9/11.
But our area has seen first-hand how rank-and-file Tea Party members can rise to the occasion.
Area Tea Party organizations staged a protest in March 2009 in which they planned to dump tea into the Mississippi River.
We suggested that a “far better use for that tea would be to give it to a food pantry, along with maybe a can of beef stew or a jar of apple sauce. A box of pudding or maybe some muffin mix. Peanut butter and jelly. Think oatmeal and a fruit juice. Or cash for meat, bread, fruit and vegetables.”
The Tea Partiers accepted the challenge. They set up food donation stations at the rally and contributed canned food and cash to an area food pantry.
The theme of the Sunday rally is “Repeal, Reduce, Restore, Rise Up!”
They should add “Volunteer” to that list.
Volunteer for a 9/11 service week project online, or by calling 314-539-4298.
