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The town will be holding a remembrance ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 at 6 p.m. to commemorate the lives lost on 9/11, according to volunteer coordinator Pam McKinnon. The ceremony will be at the town green, near the steps of Memorial Town Hall.
A civic participation initiative being done in conjunction with the remembrance has already resulted in the donation of 742 pounds of food, and $601.78, McKinnon said. The donations were the result of work done by the Polson Middle School and Daniel Hand High High School Excel Clubs, and the Daniel Hand High School Interact Club, she said.
McKinnon made the announcement at a Board of Selectmen meeting Monday morning, where First Selectman Fillmore McPherson had announced earlier that recent unemployment statistics showed that the town's unemployment rate is going up.
"I regret to inform you ... that it is now back up to almost 6.5 percent," he told attendees at the meeting. The town's unemployment rate had at one point in the last year been below 6 percent, he said. "I am sorry to bring that bad news."
McKinnon said the donations gathered by the teens as part of the citizen participation initiative will help people in Madison who are struggling to put food on their table.
"The statistics you talked about earlier are telling," said said to McPherson at the meeting. "We get a couple hundred families a week, each week, at the food pantry."
McKinnon said Vista Vocational, a non-profit based in Madison and Westbrook that provides services to adults with disabilities, will be taking the lead on the downtown cleanup. She said they will be organizing a clean up around the town green and downtown.
To find out more, please contact McKinnon at 203-640-2629.
McKinnon said the work and ceremony are in commemoration of four people from Madison who were killed on Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists hijacked four planes, including two that hit the World Trade Center, one that hit the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a fourth that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
The four people who will be commemorated are:
- Dianne Bullis Snyder, 42, who was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11. She grew up in Madison, attended Daniel Hand High School and lived in Westport, MA.
- Peter Girard Gelinas, 34, grew up in Madison, lived in Bronxville, NY and worked in the World Trade Center.
- Anthony Demas, 61, managing director of Aon Corporation in World Trade Center, had a weekend home in Madison and was known for driving his 1960 Mercedes convertible in the Fourth of July parade.
- Robert Peraza, 30, originally from Madison, was a broker at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center.
Snyder, Gelinas, Demas, and Peraza are also commemorated in the James Madison Memorial Garden by the town green.
Headed to New York City anytime soon? Here's a visitor's guide to 9/11 Memorials in New York City, and across America.
