Welcome Home Jersey City Co-Founder Channels 9/11 Experience In Volunteer Work

JERSEY CITY, NJ — Kara Murphy has spent the last 20 years "living deliberately" as she says. She considers herself lucky to have walked out of the World Trade Center on September 11th, physically unscathed — but she said she's carried scars from the experience for two decades.

Between the emotional scars of the September 11th attacks and her vow to live deliberately, Murphy threw herself into volunteer work for years, which eventually led to her founding the Welcome Home Jersey City nonprofit. The organization helps refugees and asylum-seekers in the city get resettled. Surviving 9/11 was a big influence in her decision to start the organization.

"I felt like I had to pay back my good luck, I had to be able to earn my right to get a second chance," Murphy said, "I empathize with the refugees we work with because we both have these battle scars that you can't see."

In 2001, Murphy was a fresh-faced analyst, still learning the ropes of what her Wall Street job had to offer. She was working with Morgan Stanley in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center on the 72nd floor. Hijacked Flight 175 crashed into the south tower between floors 77 and 85, just above Murphy and her colleagues. Memories from that day stay within her, Murphy said.

"My body can, like, conjure up those memories, and it's like I'm right back there," she said.

Today, Murphy is selective about sharing her story. In the wake of the attacks, she told her anecdotes to countless friends and family and people who asked, but she said now, she's become more cautious.

"Talking about it can be therapeutic, especially when it's in a constructive context, but I'm always keeping a watchful eye that it doesn't become a party trick," Murphy said.

In 2017, she wrote an essay and published it on LinkedIn detailing her experience. Murphy has two daughters and a son, with the oldest being 13. She's started reading her essay with her oldest child and gently explaining how the terrorist attack impacted her life.

The influence of surviving the attack has manifested itself differently throughout Murphy's life over the years. Immediately following 9/11, Murphy made a concise effort to continue traveling into Manhattan, always living close, no matter where she moved.

"I didn't want to let the terrorists win, I thought, 'I'll be damned if I let them take part of my city from me," Murphy said.

Raised in Oradell, NJ, Murphy stayed close to New York City before and after the attacks, moving between Brooklyn, Manhattan and for a long 10-year stint, Jersey City. She called Jersey City home until about three years ago, when she moved out to Texas. Now that she's physically farther from the site of the attacks, the anniversaries have been harder on Murphy.

"My son's first year of school in Texas, he came home upset that they didn't do anything on 9/11 — in New York or New Jersey the schools had a moment of silence or something, here it's just different," Murphy said.

The scars of the day run deep within Murphy's family — she lost her cousin in the towers as well. Murphy said the survivor's guilt is something she's never been able to shake.

"The older I get, the more profound it feels. Now I have 20 years under my belt that my cousin didn't," Murphy said, her voice shaking, "I owe a lot to him and his family."

That sense of repayment and taking advantage of the life she's had "a second chance" on has motivated her to focus on what Murphy calls the three legs of her stool. Family, her career in finance and volunteering have become central to Murphy's life since the attacks.

"Post 9/11 there was this very knee-jerk reaction among some people to close our borders, reflexively be more protective and less open and less diverse — it always felt to me like if we bowed to those fears than the terrorists had won," Murphy said.

Immediately following 9/11, Murphy began volunteering with Safe Horizon, a victim services agency that worked closely with people directly impacted by the attacks. In 2016, having seen the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis, Murphy, Laura McBride and Alain Mentha co-founded Welcome Home to help refugees and asylum seekers in the area.

"There's something about being able to provide safe harbor to those who really need it," Murphy said, "I was very fortunate to have survived 9/11, and I wanted to be able to help people and provide that safe harbor where I could."

The feeling of helping and resettling people new to the country was therapeutic in ways, Murphy said. She noticed the same feeling in family and friends who volunteered alongside her. As strong as the feeling of the scars from the attacks can be, Murphy said she's grateful to have the time she's been given, with more work in volunteering along the way.