A Season of Service: Honoring 9/11 by Giving Back in Paterson

View our video recap of Vivmark’s service day in Paterson

Watch our short reel of the AmeriCorps 9/11 Day of Service

Twenty-five years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the anniversary remains a solemn day to remember the lives lost and the countless people who stepped forward to help in the difficult days that followed.

It has also become a call to action. Each year, the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance invites Americans to honor that legacy through service in their own communities. Here in Paterson, NJCDC’s AmeriCorps members answered that call alongside local high school students. Less than a week later, another group arrived ready to roll up their sleeves: more than 120 volunteers from Vivmark Residential, continuing a tradition of service in Paterson established through AvalonBay Communities more than a decade ago.

Different days. Different volunteers. The same idea: a stronger community starts with people who show up.

Cleaning Up, Looking Back

On September 11, NJCDC AmeriCorps members joined community volunteers and more than two dozen students from John F. Kennedy High School to spend the anniversary caring for the community immediately surrounding their school. Together, they spread out across several neighborhood blocks, filling bags with litter and cleaning streets and sidewalks. At the entrance to nearby Westside Park, another team turned its attention to a graffiti-covered wall, giving it a fresh coat of paint in preparation for a future mural.

For Gabrielle Foushee, Program Director of NJCDC’s AmeriCorps Paterson Community Schools Corps, the work offered students a tangible way to connect the history of September 11 with their own responsibility to the places they call home. “We’re remembering 9/11 by cleaning up our high school and beautifying it for the students,” Gabrielle said. “Community service is important because it’s the heartbeat of who we are. We all find a way to contribute and give back.”

After the cleanup, volunteers gathered for an outdoor lunch, but the results of their morning remained throughout the neighborhood: cleaner blocks, a refreshed entrance to Westside Park, and students who had spent the day working alongside AmeriCorps members in service of their community.

A Familiar Partner, With a New Name

Six days later, that spirit of service continued on a much larger scale when more than 120 employees of Vivmark Residential arrived in Paterson armed with work gloves, paintbrushes, shovels, flowers, and school supplies.

The name may be new, but the partnership is not. Vivmark was formed this summer through the merger of longtime NJCDC supporter AvalonBay Communities and Equity Residential. For more than a decade, AvalonBay employees have returned to Paterson nearly every year through the company’s annual Spirit of Caring initiative, tackling hands-on projects that have improved NJCDC facilities and neighborhood spaces. This year, they returned as Vivmark and went straight to work.

The morning began at NJCDC’s Rogers Meeting Center, where Chief Program Officer David Gelman welcomed the volunteers and thanked them for continuing that longstanding commitment to Paterson. “We are so grateful to Vivmark for coming out to beautify our community,” David told the group. “What this team can accomplish in a single day might take others months. You’re making several spaces safer and more welcoming for our students and families, and our entire community is grateful for the difference you’re making.”

Then, the volunteers fanned out across the neighborhood.

120 Volunteers, Four Projects, One Day

Just outside Rogers Meeting Center, one team took on a particularly historic assignment: cleaning a portion of Paterson’s raceway system, the man-made canals that once harnessed the power of the Passaic River and helped fuel the city’s rise as an industrial center. Undeterred by poison ivy and overgrowth, volunteers cleared weeds and debris and beautified a substantial stretch of the canal near Rogers.

A few blocks away, another group headed to the elementary campus of NJCDC’s Community Charter School of Paterson. There, volunteers sanded and repainted outdoor flower beds before filling them with new plants, bringing fresh color to the campus just as students settle into a new school year.

At our William Carlos Williams Plaza, volunteers landscaped and cleared debris before adding flowers throughout the public space, which sits just steps from NJCDC headquarters and serves as a gathering place for neighbors, families, and students. Back at Rogers, still more volunteers formed an assembly line, packing school supplies for NJCDC students.

Taken together, it was a considerable amount of work compressed into just a few hours.

For Vivmark employees, the day was also an opportunity to reconnect. Staff came together from different sites, with hugs and conversations between projects giving the event something of a reunion atmosphere.

And while the company itself has entered a new chapter, Vivmark Senior Operations Manager Sarah Tullo said its relationship with NJCDC remains one the team is eager to continue. “Working with NJCDC has been a truly rewarding experience,” Sarah said. “We value the strong partnership and teamwork between Vivmark and NJCDC, which have led to many successful projects. We’re grateful for the trust and collaboration we’ve built and look forward to continuing this relationship and achieving many more successes together.”

A Quarter-Century of Showing Up

Twenty-five years after 9/11, an entire generation of young people knows that day only through the stories and history passed down to them. But the spirit of service that emerged in its aftermath remains something they can experience firsthand.

This September, that meant students cleaning the blocks around their school alongside AmeriCorps members. Days later, it meant more than 120 Vivmark employees planting flowers, clearing overgrowth, packing school supplies, and caring for shared community spaces.

A quarter-century after September 11, remembrance continues in Paterson not only by looking back — but by carrying forward the call to serve.