Collingswood Students Give Back on 9-11 Day of Service

As solemn as the memories of the September 11, 2001 tragedy may be, for every year that passes from the date of the attacks, there's more emotional distance from the weight of that day.

For educators in the Collingswood school district, the challenge then becomes finding a way to bridge that temporal gap for students who may not even have been born when the planes hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the ground in Stonycreek Township, PA.

Collingswood Middle School social studies teacher Beth Ann Rodgers said that the focus of the lessons she offers is shifting more towards thoughts of how the people affected by the attacks recovered from them.

"We really focused on what the American people did after," Rodgers said, "and how they turned something that was really horrible and tragic into something positive.

"Life is what you make it, so we thought this is the best thing that we could do to honor those lives lost, actually to honor those people that sacrifice for us every day, like the emergency service personnel."

That's why, for the past few years, Rodgers has led special lessons on the 9-11 attacks, bringing in guest speakers from the Collingswood Police and Fire Departments as well as participating with them in the presidentially appointed national day of service.

On Wednesday, about 150 students and school staff were scattered throughout the borough, helping clean up Knight Park and the Scottish Rite theater as well as washing police and fire vehicles in a gesture of giving back to the community institutions that they enjoy as Collingswood residents.

"Volunteering your time to help after school for this is like you're respecting the people that lost their lives" in the tragedy, said Joseph Buthusiem, an eighth-grader in Rodgers' class.

Rodgers' husband, Agent Christopher Rodgers of the Collingswood Police Department, said that the vehicle clean-up was not only a morale booster for officers, but an important piece of maintaining the image of the department.

"When we roll up on a scene you'd rather have a car that's clean," he said. "People trust us a little more when they see us coming out of something that looks good."

At the borough fire station, where another group of students was washing down the engine that had gone into service only hours earlier on East Knight Ave., Collingswood Fire Chief Keith Davis said that the volunteer spirit on display was a welcome gesture.

"It's better than just staying home and trying to remember the day as it was," Davis said. "Some of these kids were too young to kind of remember what truly happened that day.

"To keep that memory alive and put a positive spin on it, it's really good for the whole community."

Click the video above to see footage from the police and fire cleanup in Collingswood on Sept. 11.