The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks weigh on most Americans’ hearts as freshly today as it did four years ago. The somber day brings about sadness for the lives that were lost at the World Trade Center, Somerset, Pa. and the Pentagon.

Although the anniversary of Sept. 11 brings about bereavement, select students at Syracuse University used the day to give back to the local Syracuse community.

As the flag stood at half-mast, a group of about 50 students decided to give back to the downtown community by honoring the local Syracuse Firefighters Association on Sunday morning.

‘It’s an event that brings the whole country together,’ said William Coplin, adviser of the Maxwell Citizenship Education Learning Community and professor of public affairs in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

The Maxwell Citizenship Education Learning Community spent time at the Fayette Firefighters Memorial Park in an effort to keep it maintained. Members of the learning community spent the morning cleaning up garbage, raking leaves, sweeping the walkways and planting new flowers around each of the several statues and plaques in the park.

‘It’s important that Sept. 11 be remembered and it’s important that we’re giving back to the community,’ said Maria Sinopoli, a member of the learning community and freshman broadcast journalism major.

The students walked from Brewster-Boland-Brockway Halls to the downtown park at 9 a.m. and began working immediately, Coplin said.

They worked for several minutes before posing for a picture in front of a fire truck and one in front of the central statue around the fountain.

Syracuse Mayor Matthew Driscoll, who posed with the students for the pictures, spoke briefly and thanked them for helping to bring SU and the Syracuse community together.

James Ennis, president of the Syracuse Firefighters Association, also made an appearance. He gave a brief account of the park’s history, as the students gathered around the flag pole that was dedicated to the firefighter casualties of Sept. 11.

‘The park is the oldest public green space in Syracuse,’ Ennis said. ‘It dates back to the 1800’s. Abolitionists used to speak here.’

Fayette Firefighter Memorial Park is a historical part of the Syracuse community, Ennis said. Previously called Center Park, Fayette Firefighter Memorial Park honors the life achievements of Syracuse firefighters.

After Sept. 11, the flag pole was dedicated to the 343 New York City firefighters who died in the terrorist attacks.

A ceremony took place around the dedicated flag pole, where a bouquet of yellow daisies was placed.

Also, Nicholas Grybauskas, a freshman in the learning community, gave a brief speech about how Sept. 11 affected him and what it means to the learning community.

This is the second year that the four-year-old learning community extended their services to the Syracuse community, said Kait Gallup, the learning community’s manager and a sophomore policy studies and public relations major.

The Maxwell Citizenship Education learning community is a select freshmen-only learning community that resides in Brewster Hall.

The main focus of the group is to promote citizenship and leadership, Coplin said. One of the other goals of the learning community is to get involved in the community. They spend much of the year giving back to the community through literacy programs and ropes courses.

‘There is a 20-hour semester ‘requirement,’ but it’s not really enforced,’ Coplin said. ‘Because they’re either gonna do it or they’re not gonna do it.’

The students in the learning community were of the top 2,500 students who applied to SU last fall, Coplin said. Upon receiving their acceptance letters, these students were also mailed invitations to write an essay for a Maxwell Citizenship Education scholarship.

Based on their essays, students were invited to SU to debate one another. From those students, the Maxwell Citizenship Education learning community and scholarship recipients were chosen, he said.

‘(The learning community) is fun,’ said Sinopoli. ‘It lets us do things we wouldn’t normally do.’

Published on September 11, 2005 at 12:00 pm