Veterans of The Mission Continues Serve Ellis Island on 9/11

Members of The Mission Continues and National Park Service employees on Ellis Island. NPS photo.

On a fine September morning in 2017, a ferry docked at Ellis Island and about a hundred passengers in matching blue T-shirts stepped off with an unusual sense of purpose. They were volunteers with The Mission Continues, a national nonprofit that helps veterans find purpose through community service as they adjust to life at home, and they had come for a 9/11 Day of Service with the National Park Service on September 11, 2017.

A growing partnership

It was the second year of the partnership. The first had gone so well, and the Ellis Island project was so popular with veterans, that the volunteer places grew from 80 to 115 to meet demand.

The work

Volunteers soon had tools in hand:

• brushes and rollers to paint exhibit rooms and towers in the National Museum of Immigration;
• pry bars, saws and sledgehammers to tear down a worn-out wooden entrance ramp;
• pitchforks and rakes to spread mulch around trees and planting beds;
• loppers and scythes to cut back an invasive weed.

In a burst of effort they finished the day's work in just four hours.

A famous volunteer

Jon Stewart, former host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and a longtime supporter of the organisation, pitched in, wielding a four-foot crowbar to take apart his crew's section of ramp. He told the veterans how rewarding it was to work beside them, and that volunteering on Ellis Island moved him because his own grandparents had come to America through its doors, part of a wave of immigration that made the country great.

Why it mattered

Marvin Cadet, a project specialist with The Mission Continues, said holding a 9/11 day of service on Ellis Island was very special: feeling the history there, and looking across the water to the symbols of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty, underlined why many veterans chose to serve, and the group hoped the partnership would continue. Superintendent John Piltzecker of Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island said the park was immensely proud of the partnership, impressed by the volunteers' dedication and professionalism, and grateful for their service to the nation and in the national parks.

Sources

• National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument, "The Mission Continues 9/11 Day of Service on Ellis Island." https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-mission-continues-9-11-day-of-service-on-ellis-island.htm
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.