This month marks 25 years since September 11, 2001. For a lot of us in this chapter, it’s not just a date on the calendar. We’re New Yorkers. Some of us watched it happen. Some of us knew people who didn’t come home that day.
That day didn’t only touch New York. The Pentagon was hit that same morning, and Flight 93 went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers on board fought back. Nearly 3,000 people died across all three sites.
And for a lot of people, it didn’t end that day. Responders and recovery workers who spent weeks and months at Ground Zero are still getting sick from what they breathed in: cancers, lung disease, conditions that took years to show up. The World Trade Center Health Program still processes new diagnoses every year, a quarter century later.
Then OEF and OIF sent a new generation overseas, and a lot of them that were able to make it home came back carrying things that don’t show up on an x-ray: burn pit exposure, TBI, PTSD, and the hard work of figuring out what comes next.
That’s a big part of why this chapter exists. Farming gives veterans something to put their hands into, work that’s physical, useful, and theirs. It’s not a cure, but it’s a start, and it’s one we can offer.
So this month we’re remembering everyone we lost on 9/11, thinking about the responders still dealing with what that day cost them, and standing with our OEF/OIF vets. If that’s you, or someone you know, FVC NY is here.
#NeverForget #FVCNY
