GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Green Bay West High School students stepped up to a challenge that honors first responders who gave the ultimate sacrifice on 9/11.
The physical education department held its annual memorial bleacher climb in the gym Monday.
The event tries to give students a small glimpse into what firefighters had to endure that day. Carrying more than 100 pounds of gear on them, New York City firefighters climbed 110 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center to save lives, 22 years ago.
Students climbed or walked the school bleachers 11 times, which is equivalent to 1/10 of the 110 stories.
And although West High School students were not alive when it happened, Lt. Shauna Walesh of Green Bay Metro Fire Department, says history is important to remember.
“With this, the students get a little bit of movement but also when they’re climbing the bleachers, they can think about the people that maybe walked into their offices that day, never made it back home, the first responders, the pilots, everybody that was involved that day,” she said.
The National Guard also brought some rucksacks that the students could wear to give the experience another realistic element.
“One thing that I’ve been asking students to do that I’ve seen throughout the schools in our area is to talk to an adult, mom, dad, grandparent, because everybody has a unique memory of what they were doing when 9/11 occurred. So if they’re having kind of a hard time grasping what today is, ask somebody that was around,” Walesh suggested.
Of the 2,996 people who died in the attacks that day, 343 of them were firefighters.
