Student leaders are sponsoring small American flags that will line the walkways of Young Commons on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks with proceeds to benefit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
Elon University’s Student Government Association is encouraging the community to remember those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center and Pentagon by sponsoring flags that will line Young Commons on the anniversary of the terror attacks.
SGA is collecting donations at a Moseley Center table from 10 a.m. through 2 p.m. every day this week. In addition to handheld flags on display, the bell in Alamance will toll Friday morning at the exact times the planes crashed.
Funds from flag sponsorships will benefit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Organizers are asking for a minimum donation of $1 per flag.
New this year will be flags from about 30 other nations, displayed alongside the American flags, to repesent the nationalities of victims from other parts of the world. The international flags were suggested to SGA after last fall’s event by students who wanted to note the global nature of the violence.
“We can put flags out to say we’re honoring 9/11, but to allow students to participate by donating money is what we really wanted,” said Elon junior Shelby Allen, a human service studies major from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and one of two SGA senators co-organizing the memorial. “It gets everyone involved.”
The program comes at a time when the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, is becoming more of a history lesson than a personal memory for college students. The Class of 2019 was in kindergarten the morning three jets struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside of Washington, with a fourth crashing into a rural Pennsylvania field when passengers led a counterattack against hijackers.
Allen, a second grade student at the time, remembers her teachers lining up children in hallways and informing everyone that parents would arrive shortly because of an early dismissal. It wasn’t until she returned home that television images showed the national “disarray.”
“This was a huge event that affected everyone in the country,” Allen said.
Flags will be placed in Young Commons on Thursday night following an SGA meeting. They will remain in place until Saturday afternoon.
The Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life also is offering a prayer service Friday morning in the Sacred Space of the Numen Lumen Pavilion. The space will be available for reflection throughout the day.
The service itself begins at 9:11 a.m.