#703 – We Will Never Forget

We Will Never Forget

Seventeen years ago this morning, we all remember precisely what we were doing. It’s our generation’s Pearl Harbor or JFK moment. Seventeen years. Seems like yesterday.

We wanted to share the account of someone very near and dear to Agracel. Jason Kester recently joined our team as the Regional Development Director of our newly established Ohio Valley office. With his permission, we are sharing his story…

As some of you know, I spent about a week at the WTC after 9/11 as a firefighter assisting in the recovery efforts.  It really had a profound impact on me then, and still does today.

I want to share my most lasting memory: whenever we would return to quarters, there would be hundreds of families trying to give us photos of their loved ones.  They would plead with us to find them, it was very overwhelming.  One gentleman, stopped to ask me a question that profoundly changed my view of the tragedy/world…  “how do we replace those that were lost?”  He went on to explain that we lost not only family members, but thousands of community volunteers, little league coaches, church leaders, etc., which will be impossible to replace.   He was obviously grieving, but he was thinking of the bigger picture.

I’ve gotten up every day since trying to figure out how I could give back a little bit to my community, the country, etc.  So, if you can take a minute sometime in the next few weeks, volunteer for something, donate to a worthy cause, do a good deed in memory of everyone that was lost 17 years ago, and in the subsequent conflicts around the world that were put in motion on that day.