Remembering 9/11/2001

The Foxboro Jaycees have coordinated six memorial events since September 11, 2001. We remember…

One month after the attacks, a United We Stand concert, coordinated by the Jaycees, was held October 2, 2001 on Foxboro Common. The concert was organized to allow local residents to show unity and raise donations for the national September 11th Fund. That fund was created for the victims of the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

One year later, on September 11, 2002, the town of Foxboro remembered with various events and gatherings, and the Jaycees held a candlelight memorial on the Common

Five years later, on September 11, 2006, the Jaycees invited the town of Foxboro to remember with a live cablecast candlelight memorial on the Common and displayed the list of the nearly 3000 victims on the common bandstand.

Ten years later, on September 11, 2011, the day after “Foxboro Never Forgets” unveiled the extraordinary 9/11 memorial at the Foxboro Public Safety Building in a very moving ceremony, the Jaycees again invited the town of Foxboro to remember with a live cablecast memorial on the Common and displayed the list of the nearly 3000 victims on the common bandstand.

Fifteen years later, on September 11, 2016, the Jaycees again invited the town of Foxboro to remember with a live cablecast memorial on the Common and displayed the list of the nearly 3000 victims on the common bandstand. We were very honored to have Cindy McGinty as guest speaker.  See also news story from 2016: CLICK HERE

Twenty years later, on September 11, 2021, the Jaycees again invited the town of Foxboro to remember with a live cablecast memorial on the Common and displayed the list of the nearly 3000 victims on the common bandstand.

From the Jaycee September 11 memorial, 2011: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. The Foxboro Jaycees are very grateful to have you here as we mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America.

We would like to thank our friends at Foxboro Cable Access who are broadcasting this event live and on their web site for everyone who couldn’t make it here this evening. We would also remind you to please make time to visit the extraordinary September 11 memorial dedicated yesterday by “Foxboro Never Forgets”, which includes a piece of steel from the World Trade Center. Appropriately enough, this beautiful monument was built at the Public Safety Building, where our heroes work.

We encourage you to embrace the spirit of yesterday’s dedication, of people coming together to help each other, the unbreakable American spirit, of “doing what we do,” as Chris and Cindy both said, and growing stronger as a nation, and as a family, united.

As with the candlelight vigils we held on the first and fifth anniversaries of 9/11, there is no official program or schedule tonight. We will have a moment of silence and then play the national anthem, and then we leave it to you to choose how to spend this time. Stay the entire hour, or only a few minutes. Talk to each other, say a prayer or have a good thought, whatever brings you comfort.

For the kids here tonight we have pinwheels and glow sticks, for the adults we have candles. We’ll play appropriate music, and on the projected screen, and on your TVs at home, you will see the long list of names scrolling by. Please look at that list and remember that every name represents a living, breathing human being with hopes and concerns, dreams, family, friends… killed. Murdered. In an act of barbaric terrorism ten years ago today. Remember them. Remember the 10,000 children orphaned. Remember those who had to go on without them. No name must be forgotten.

On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, then-New York Governor Pataki said, in part, “The date, September 11, will forever evoke recollections of unimaginable tragedy, of lives callously lost and brutally cut short and of unspeakable horror and sorrow in the hearts and minds of all of us. … That is why each and every September 11, we as Americans pay tribute to those who lost their lives that fateful day. We gather in unity and dignity to honor the freedoms that we have fought for in the past, the freedoms our loved ones have died for, and those freedoms that we continue to fight for today… Remembering that day is not a choice but our solemn obligation. As you recall September 11, always remember that we were attacked not for what we do wrong but for what we do right. Remember the spirit of that day — the day America showed what makes us a great people and a great nation; the day the true character of our nation triumphed over unspeakable evil; the day that freedom and democracy prevailed yet again over oppression and tyranny.”

Friends, this evening we once again take comfort in being together, as a community, to find strength in numbers, and take a few moments to remember the 3000 innocent souls we lost, and what happened to us, on September 11, two thousand and one.

We sincerely thank you for joining us.

And now, a moment of silence, followed by our national anthem.”