Natomas Students Remember 9/11

 

April Meyer was working as a 4th grade teacher at Natomas Park Elementary School when terrorists attacked America 10 years ago.

As the nation mourned, Meyer’s students created a banner and hung it in the school cafeteria where other students had the chance to add their own message of hope and support to victims of the tragedy.

The banner was sent on to Ground Zero where one of the chaplains who went to New York City in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks remembers seeing it. Meyer later heard unconfirmed reports the banner was even included in a display commemorating 9/11 at the Smithsonian Institute. 

“Just the thought that it was there made me very proud of those fabulous 4th graders a decade ago,” said Meyer. “I wonder where they all are now and how they remember it.”

For the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Meyer and two other 5th grade teachers at Heron School teamed up to create a new banner.

“The Law Enforcement Chaplaincy of Sacramento solicited children all over the Sacramento to thank fire fighters and police, to create a huge display on the capitol steps,” said Fred Hammer, school chaplain.

The children who worked on the commemorative banner, Hammer said, were “babies or not quite born yet” on 9/11. The king-size sheet features more than 100 students’ red-white-and-blue hand prints in the design of an American flag.

The banner will be included in the Chaplaincy’s “2011: Decade of Remembrance” event today 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on the east steps of the California state capitol.