By Jeff Werner Buck Local News
The Garden of Reflection memorial will be bathed in a moving sea of flickering light on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 as the community comes together to remember a day that changed the world.
The ceremony will begin at 7:00pm at the Woodside Road Memorial, where twin fountains shoot toward the heavens and a monument of twisted steel beams from the World Trade Center stands as a lasting tribute to those who died in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, including 82 Pennsylvanians and 17 from Bucks County.
The ceremony promises to be a very moving and reflective event, said Ellen Saracini of Lower Makefield. Her husband, Victor, was the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, which was hijacked and flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. The “Remembrance in Light” is in lieu of the traditional daytime 9/11 ceremony, which has historically marked the exact moment the hijacked planes struck the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and crashed into a farmer’s field in near Shanksville. Saracini said the committee planning the remembrance made the decision to move the event to the evening to give more people the opportunity to participate.
“Moving it to a night timeframe allows the 9/11 families to attend the ceremony in New York and still come to the garden at night to commemorate as well as allowing our working community the opportunity to come to the remembrance ceremony,” said Saracini.
In addition, visitors will have an opportunity to register their thoughts and feelings on the Walls of Remembrance, a series of panels that will be set up at the garden prior to the ceremony.
“Last year we introduced the Walls of Remembrance and found that people loved to add their sentiments,” said Saracini. “We are going to have another wall for people to do just that.”
Two days before the event, on Sunday, September 9, the 9th annual Run for the Garden will step off on from Memorial Park, the home of the Garden of Reflection. The 5-K race will take participants down Woodside Road, through a neighboring development and then back to the park.
The 5-K has been organized for close to a decade now by Greg and Cheryl Tarallo, who Saracini said have been “wonderful friends of the garden.”
“Once again they are offering to run the event and donate the proceeds to the garden endowment,” said Saracini. “They are a wonderful couple and the garden is very fortunate to have their continued support each year.”
To register for the 5-K, visit our events section or click here.
