The Tribute Family: Our volunteer guides

In between other stories that come up, I want to talk about the wonderful, hard working, and dedicated people that make up the September 11th Families’ Association and the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, from the volunteers to our C.E.O.

Let's start with the volunteers. The first thought of having guided tours started around March 2004, when a high school group visited from a small town called Phillipsburg, Kansas, in the bread basket of our country. Jennifer Adams (our Chief Executive Officer – whom I will write much more about later) saw a change in the faces of these young people when I started talking. From playing with their cell phones, talking to other students, or just being young people and fidgeting around, they became quiet and attentive with some serious and very well thought out questions. They became truly interested in what had happened to their country on 9/11. The seed was planted -- why not inspire others by giving guided tours around the site? From this, the volunteer program was born.

We decided to structure the program by utilizing, as we have now coined the phase, folks from the 9/11 community. This includes those who have lost a loved one, rescue workers, survivors, volunteers that came to help, and those that lived or worked in the area and saw things they never should have had to see.

Our first training program was in August 2004. The first group of 17 guides participated in a training course that started late Friday afternoon and continued most of the day on Saturday. We could see the genuine interest in their eyes and how therapeutic it would be for them to tell their stories to the world. We knew it would be a great success -- and 244 trained volunteers and 100,000 visitors later, it certainly is! Our guides help to keep the memories and facts of 9/11 alive for the thousands of visitors from around the world that are craving information about the attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The visitors want to know facts and our guides fill that gap.

I’d like to thank our volunteer guides for having the strength to share their stories. Because of you, our walking tours have inspired over 100,000 people from around the world. Congratulations on this incredible feat.

More about our extraordinary volunteers and staff in posts to come…