The National September 11 Memorial and Museum has launched a new awareness and fundraising campaign called Never Forget, timed to the approaching 25th anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks. The effort is built around a 60-second public service announcement that made its debut on Good Morning America. Rather than speaking to those who lived through the day, the campaign is aimed squarely at a generation that has no memory of it, an audience the museum says it can no longer take for granted a quarter of a century later.
Organizers said the spot was produced with a very specific target in mind: the roughly 100 million Americans who were not yet alive on September 11, 2001. The advertisement features young people repeating the line, I wasn't there, I didn't see the planes, before turning to a promise that they will never forget. The approach is meant to bridge the widening gap between Americans who remember the attacks firsthand and those who will only ever learn about them through history.
The financial stakes of the campaign are considerable. The museum says it is trying to generate 25 million dollars, and philanthropist and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who currently serves as the institution's chairman, announced that he will personally match that figure. Officials said the combined sum is intended to help provide a 9/11 education to millions of students across the country, extending the museum's reach far beyond lower Manhattan.
At the heart of the PSA are deeply personal stories. One of its faces is Kylie Corrigan, a 12-year-old whose grandfather, retired FDNY Captain James Corrigan, died in the collapse of the South Tower. Her father and uncle went on to join the New York Fire Department in the years that followed. When producers asked her to appear, she did not hesitate, explaining that she thinks of her late grandfather much as she does her own father, because relatives often tell her the two look alike and shared the same personality.
Another participant featured in the announcement is Keith Walcott Jr., 31, whose father was a former Port Authority police officer who responded to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later took part in the recovery efforts after 9/11. That record of service, Walcott said, inspired him to follow in his father's footsteps. He recalled being told that if he was going to do the job, he should do it with integrity and compassion, advice he said shaped his own decision to serve.
Beyond the advertisement itself, museum officials said the contributions raised through the campaign will support a series of longer-term goals. The funds are expected to help open a landmark exhibition, establish a permanent source of funding for the institution, and expand free programs offered to students, teachers and first responders. Together, those measures are designed to put the museum on firmer financial footing while widening public access to its educational work.
The institution is also pushing its mission into the realm of leadership. Officials said they are offering 9/11 crisis leadership training across the public sector and are now bringing those programs to private companies as well, drawing on lessons about how people led in the chaotic aftermath of the attacks. The overarching aim, they said, is to commemorate the people who were killed, to educate the world about what happened that day and afterward, and to inspire an end to hatred and intolerance, in a report by Joe Torres of Eyewitness News.