About 1,300 volunteers across the St. Louis area are packing more than 400,000 non-perishable meals this week, part of a nationwide effort marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The push traces back to one man: Glenn Winuk, a 40-year-old Manhattan attorney who ran into the World Trade Center's South Tower to save lives and never came out.
Winuk evacuated his own law offices when the towers were hit, then went back in on foot to help others, according to FOX 2. He was a volunteer firefighter in suburban Long Island who loved the job, and he died when the South Tower collapsed. His name and face ended up among the thousands plastered on missing posters across New York in the days after the attacks, one of which read simply: last seen, 9:25 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 11. Winuk would be 65 years old this year.
His younger brother, Jay Winuk, later co-founded what became the 9/11 Day movement, an effort to turn the anniversary into an annual day of charitable service rather than only a day of mourning. According to Wikipedia, Jay Winuk and David Paine founded the grassroots initiative originally called One Day's Pay — later renamed MyGoodDeed and then 9/11 Day — in 2002, in memory of Glenn.
From a Brother's Loss to Federal Law
Jay Winuk, who is from New York, has said the effort is driven by his brother's example. “Glenn lived his life and ultimately died in service to other people,” Jay Winuk said, per the same account from FOX 2. Congress eventually caught up with the movement: President Barack Obama signed the bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in April 2009, which formally designated September 11 as a federal National Day of Service and Remembrance, according to the U.S. Senate.
Recognition for Winuk himself did not come easily. The federal Department of Justice initially denied line-of-duty death benefits to his family under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Act, arguing that his 1998 shift to associate member status in the Jericho Volunteer Fire Department disqualified the claim, according to Kreindler & Kreindler. It took a four-year pro bono legal appeal before a hearing officer recognized him as a fallen rescue worker in 2007. New York Governor George Pataki signed state legislation in September 2005 retroactively restoring Winuk's active firefighter status, according to the New York State Senate. Two years later, in September 2009, Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Peter King presented Winuk's family with the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor, a congressional award created for public safety officers killed in the line of duty that day.
A Growing National Effort Reaches St. Louis
This year's push, branded Unite for Good for the 25th anniversary, set a goal of mobilizing 50,000 volunteers across more than 50 U.S. cities to pack up to 20 million meals for hunger relief, a target that has now grown to more than 17 million meals nationwide as the effort more than doubles in size compared with last year, when St. Louis was one of just 24 places packing meals for families in need. In St. Louis, roughly 1,300 volunteers are contributing more than 400,000 meals, working alongside the St. Louis Area Foodbank, according to KSDK. Volunteer meal-packing slots in the region are already full.
People from more than 90 countries were killed in the September 11 attacks, and the world responded to the tragedy, FOX 2 reports. Americans came together that day regardless of where they lived, how much money they had, their race, or their religion, and organizers say the annual day of service is meant as a way to use the worst of times to bring out the best in people. Jay Winuk has noted that the country has had 100 million people born since 9/11 — meaning a growing share of Americans have no direct memories of the attacks or their aftermath.
Survey estimates from 9/11 Day suggest between 35 million and 47 million Americans engage in some form of volunteer project or charitable act each September 11, according to Wikipedia, making it one of the largest single days of charitable engagement in the country. St. Louis-area volunteers are part of that broader national effort, which now spans 50 locations. Organizers point to a new 9/11 Day website for people looking for ways to participate.
A Permanent Marker Near Ground Zero
Winuk's former law firm, Holland & Knight, partnered with the FDNY to fund and erect a 56-foot bronze memorial wall and plaque at FDNY Ten House on Liberty Street, honoring the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11 alongside Winuk, according to the FDNY Ten House Memorial. The bronze bas-relief mural stands on the exterior of the firehouse adjacent to the former World Trade Center site, a permanent reminder of a man who, as his brother put it, died the way he lived — in service to others.
