Pennies Are Rolling In For 9/11 Memorial Museum Collection

By Shannon Hicks

The continuing support, including two unexpectedly large donations, for the Forget Me Not Pennies 9/11 Memorial Fund has allowed Patrick Briscoe to not only reach his goal of collecting $100 worth of pennies for a cobblestone to represent his hometown at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, it also means the 13-year-old can raise the bar for his project.

Residents were first introduced to Patrick and his collection when he spoke with The Newtown Bee for a story that ran in the February 25, 2011, issue. The seventh grade student at St Rose School had taken it upon himself to make sure at least one cobblestone at the national museum honors his hometown.

Decorated coffee cans have been placed at St Rose School, 46 Church Hill Road, where Patrick is a seventh grade student; as well as C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street; Bagel Delight, 30 Church Hill Road; and The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road. Residents are just being asked, as the name of the collection implies, to drop their pennies into a can.

“Forget Me Not Pennies 9/11 Memorial Fund name is based on the fact that if we all contribute pennies, they can be combined for a greater good,” Patrick told The Bee in February. The original goal of the fund was to collect at least 10,000 pennies in order to donate $100 for a cobblestone to be placed along a pathway of the museum in Manhattan.

“That cobblestone,” he said, “would be dedicated on behalf of Newtown so that we may never forget the victims of 9/11.”

When the story about Patrick’s collection ran three weeks ago, the fund had quietly reached about $20.

The day after the story was published, an anonymous donor arrived at the offices of The Bee Publishing Co. with a cookie tin filled with pennies. He wanted Patrick to have it, he said, and left without leaving his name. Patrick reported this week that the gentleman’s donation netted $16 for the collection.

Last week The Bee was contacted by a Sandy Hook resident who wanted to donate a penny collection he had been assembling for a number of years.

“I’ve had this five-gallon container forever,” said John Sansburn. “I moved here from Michigan in 1996, and had lived in Canada before that, and I’ve been dumping pennies in a jug all along.”

There was no particular purpose for the collection, no goal set, said Mr Sansburn.

“I guess I was waiting for someone to come to the door on a penny drive,” he said with a laugh. “I would have loved to see their face if I gave them that.

“But that never happened, and I saw the article and now I can’t think of a better thing to do with these pennies,” he continued.

Patrick and his mother Liz met Mr Sansburn on Tuesday, March 15. Mr Sansburn arrived at The Bee with the bucket of pennies, a scale, and some calculations to share.

“I figure there are 11 pennies in just over one ounce, and then figured there are 1,328 pennies to a pound,” said Mr Sansburn. Knowing that there were about 85 pounds of pennies in the bucket he was giving to Patrick, Mr Sansburn calculated that he was handing over about 14,806 pennies, or another $148 to the penny collection.

“There are probably a number of Canadian pennies in there,” he warned Patrick and Liz Briscoe when they started looking inside the bucket.

By the time he met John Sansburn earlier this week, Patrick’s collection had reached over $200.

Thanks to Mr Sansburn’s donation it has reached approximately $348. Patrick and his mother continue to monitor the cans that have been placed around town.

Patrick is now hoping residents will continue to share their spare change. He has decided to collect 50,000 pennies, or enough to donate to the museum for a Memorial Glade Cobblestone.

A Special Connection

Like countless other families, the Briscoes have a special connection to the former Twin Towers. Patrick’s parents, Liz and Pat, both worked there at one point. It was also where they shared their first date.

Patrick’s grandfather, John McNulty, also of Newtown, worked for 20 years on the 91st floor of the South Tower in an office that overlooked the Statue of Liberty. He was in his office the day a bomb was set off there in 1993.

The Briscoe family also knew many victims of 9/11, as well as rescue workers who worked during the recovery efforts.

While watching a television program last fall about the museum’s planning and construction, Patrick was affected by the generosity of one person’s efforts. When he learned of an anonymous donation of $10,000 someone had made for the museum’s efforts, Patrick began thinking of how small acts can sometimes make a big difference.

“The Forget Me Not Pennies 9/11 Memorial Fund is based on the idea that if we all contribute pennies, they can be combined for a greater good,” he said.

“One of the 9/11 Memorial goals is to honor the victims through acts of community service,” continued Patrick. “I discovered that I could start my own fundraising campaign to purchase a cobblestone. I feel this would be a great community service project which would connect Newtown to a worldwide historical event.”

The September 11 Memorial & Museum will be, says planners, “the authoritative source for an evolving understanding of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 1993.”

Located on the footprints of the former buildings, the museum and its surrounding memorial space will include a growing collection of diverse artifacts, photographs, audio and video tapes, personal effects and memorabilia, expressions of tribute and remembrance, recorded testimonies and digital files and websites related to the history of the World Trade Center, the events of September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993, and the repercussions of the two terrorist attacks.

The memorial will consist of two massive pools set within the footprints of the Twin Towers. The pools will have the largest manmade waterfalls in the country cascading down their sides. The names of the nearly 3, 000 individuals who were killed in the September 11 attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, as well as in the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, will be inscribed on bronze parapets surrounding the twin pools.

Cobblestones and pavers will line the eight-acre landscaped Memorial Plaza, where nearly 400 trees are being planted to create “a contemplative space separate from the sights and sounds of the surrounding city,” according to the memorial’s website (www.National911Memorial.org).

While the cobblestones will not have inscriptions on them — the only names that will appear in the memorial will be those to whom the memorial is honoring — kiosks to be set up on Memorial Plaza will allow visitors to locate the stones they have sponsored. The cobblestone Patrick’s collection would have originally sponsored, at the $100 level, would have been placed along the paths of Memorial Plaza, a landscaped space surrounding the memorial.

The cobblestone he is now hoping to sponsor, a $500 Memorial Glade Cobblestone, will be placed within a small clearing in a grove of trees for special gatherings and annual ceremonies.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum will be dedicated on September 11, in a ceremony for victims’ families. Beginning September 12, the public may visit the memorial with a reserved visitor pass. Construction to complete the full museum and memorial is expected to continue until 2014.

Once he makes his donation, Patrick will receive a cobblestone membership card with the identifying stone number on it, and Newtown will be acknowledged on the memorial’s website.