BEAVERCREEK/KETTERING — It’s been 25 years since the September 11th attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon, and on United Flight 93.
Today, local communities will come together to honor the almost 3,000 people who lost their lives.
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News Center 7’s Taylor Robertson will be LIVE in the Miami Valley with how local communities honor the victims.
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The Beavercreek School District will be serving firefighters lunch today as a way to say thank you.
Beavercreek Superintendent Paul Otten was a principal at an elementary school in Fairfield City Schools on 9/11.
He said that day is something he will never forget.
When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, he thought it was an accident.
But when the second plane hit, Otten said for him it was mind boggling.
Otten remembers the bravery of the first responders who ran into the towers to save lives.
“They just don’t get thank you enough. I think one of the things that we saw, you know, across the country is just our entire nation, our entire country rallied. It was probably one of those moments in my lifetime that we felt the strongest sense of togetherness,” said Otten.
He said this will be his 11th year coming to the luncheon, stating that it was his favorite event.
Jo-Ann Rigano, the board president at Beavercreek City Schools, is from New York. She was teaching in Beavercreek on 9/11.
She had just dropped her students off at music class when the first plane hit. When the second plane hit, she called her husband.
The World Trade Center is a place that she had visited many times.
As a New Yorker, Rigano wanted to do something to show her appreciation to the heroes who ran into danger to save lives.
“They showed my third graders what courage was. They showed third graders what a hero was, that a hero isn’t somebody who isn’t afraid. Its someone who is afraid and goes anyway,” she said.
She learned that some Beavercreek firefighters had traveled to Ground Zero with Ohio Task Force One.
From there, she helped to create the luncheon, where today, firefighters can receive a warm meal as a token of their appreciation.
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