- [Narrator] It's gonna be a beautiful day today, sunshine throughout, low humidity, really a splendid September day, the afternoon temperature about 80 degrees.

Great weather for the (mumbles).

(soft piano music) - [Pilot] It's not on the emergency line through state emergency.

- [Monica] I am Monica on the call in which flight 11 CE (indistinct).

- The thing I remember most about the morning of 9/11 was just the sheer silence and the solemness of the room I was in, which is a Clovis Fire Station 2.

And there's just no word spoken.

(siren rings) - I couldn't believe that our country was being attacked.

I just couldn't believe it.

- When you see bodies falling from the sky, you have trouble reconciling that that's happening here.

That's happening to our citizens.

- The video is showing people hanging out of windows that we had just lost a lot of people and we need to get the people out of that second building tower one.

- So I remember getting on the dial a telephone and calling my mom saying, "Are you watching the news?

This feels like it's big."

- I was stunned to the point where I didn't know what to say and I was angry.

(siren rings) (car engine raves) - I was wondering, what are they showing at school to the kids?

I hope my kids aren't seeing this unfold.

- Obviously something's going on.

We don't know the facts yet.

And we don't wanna scare the students.

Our main job is to assure the students that they are safe in our school right now.

(car engine raves) (siren rings) - Our first responders and their bravery running in when people were already out, those things are burned into my memory of watching it even from a far.

- Me in terms of the way I felt about my country.

I felt a stronger connection to being an American in that day more than ever.

- I still believe in the American spirit, and we will unify when we need to come together we do.

And that's exactly what we did.

- It was all about we're all one, we're one nation, we're America, and we're gonna deal with what happened here.

And our country responded and responded swiftly, and it made me proud to be an American, made me proud to be a law enforcement officer.

♪ Run a soul ♪ ♪ For every daughter ♪ ♪ Every soul ♪ ♪ The price was paid ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ So remember him ♪ ♪ Cherish his name ♪ ♪ Your freedom reigns ♪ (soft soul uplifting music) - So how the Memorial came about was that Pelco had done a quarterly magazine.

After 9/11, the next quarterly magazine was dedicated to 9/11.

That magazine went out to everybody and anybody in New York that could have been a first responder.

And so after that letter started coming in, thanking Mr. McDonald and the Pelco owners for sending that out and then telling their stories, which were heartbreaking.

And so the idea came up is let's do a Memorial on this campus.

And then it evolved from there, all the thoughts and all the processes and typical Pelco, it was the people that work there as well.

One of the other owners with Dave is Tim Glines, and Dave was usually the guy that started the ideas rolling.

And then Tim Glines was the one that executed, right?

And got everybody else together and just started making things happen.

- Tim Glines was one of those people you just don't say no to.

So Tim Glines reached out to me as the Honor Guard Captain for the Clovis Fire Department.

And because the Memorial is in the city of Clovis, that was the only connection we had.

And I was kind of familiar with Tim through some other things we had done.

So when he reached out to me and told me that I was going to be in charge of this thing, I couldn't say no, it wasn't an option.

The patriotic thing for me to say it had been, I was all in, I was like, this is gonna be a great thing, but I was very skeptical.

Didn't know we could even pull it off.

And the kicker to this whole thing was this conversation's happening at the end of September.

And they're gonna do this by the beginning of December.

So we had a very tight line to get the flag built and everything else.

And the logistics of bringing all of these honor guards who had, again, no history of working together.

I had no contacts.

I didn't know anybody in these other honor guards.

It seemed like an almost insurmountable task.

But then you think back to the morning of 9/11, what those guys are looking at as they pulled up to these towers and seen this insurmountable task, these guys had to climb 70, 80 storied before they even thought about fighting a fire.

And they went in and did it.

So I felt pretty dumb saying, this can't be done.

Seeing that failure stick attitude.

So we orchestrated it.

We brought all the honor guards together.

I was very fortunate to have a guy named Jimmy Olsen from the Fresno Police Department honor guard, very well respected, former Marine.

And he was my right hand man, as far as etiquette, credibility and getting things done.

- At that time, I was in charge of the Fresno Police Department Honor Guard.

And we were an agency that was asked to be involved in this Memorial.

And our department stepped up and I volunteered to be part of this.

(soul uplifting music) - So Pelco chartered five commercial jetliners to fly over 1100 police and fire personnel from 9/11 out here to the original dedication of the 9/11 Memorial here in Clovis.

And we greeted these guys with medallions, and they're draped over their neck, like an Olympic medal would be.

The look on these guys' faces was, they never heard of Clovis California.

Fresno to them was someplace that had a pretty good football program.

And other than that, they really didn't even know where in California we were located.

So I don't think their expectations were much, but the biggest thing about that was they were just tired.

They were just tired.

They'd been months on the pile as they referred to it, the debris and they lost their friends, the things they were seeing, the smells they were smelling, they were just broke as a profession, they were just broken.

You can tell they're broken people.

There's just not much life in their eyes when you looked at them.

And for us to greet them as the heroes they are and were with the medallion, it just, hey, you're in California, you're in a place called Fresno.

You're gonna go to a little town called Clovis.

And we built this amazing Memorial for you.

This is gonna change your life.

And we got the feedback we got and that's very...

I always remember that that event back in 2001, created a lifelong friendships between the west coast and the east coast.

- And then the actual ceremony itself, I think it was almost like a Memorial service, right?

Where you go and you feel like you have some closure.

And I think that that's what we did for them was we brought them some closure and there was 400 chairs, white chairs, and they were empty.

We laid a yellow rose on each chair, and we put the name of the fire police or emergency person that lost their lives.

Any first responders that had perished at 9/11.

And that was so impactful.

- When they showed up at that Memorial and saw those chairs where their coworkers and people they knew has names on them of those, again, a white chair and the stark contrast of the bright yellow rose, it was a very, very emotional.

And you could tell for the first time, in a long time, they were allowed to grieve because up until that point, they'd been so focused on their tasks.

They didn't take the time to grieve.

It was a very, very powerful moment for us.

♪ The price was paid ♪ ♪ For everyone ♪ ♪ So remember them ♪ ♪ Cherish his name ♪ ♪ Your freedom reigns ♪ ♪ His final breathe ♪ ♪ Our flag still flies ♪ ♪ So it is said ♪ ♪ The black heroes never dies ♪ ♪ For every soul ♪ - There was a police officer who came out who told David McDonald after words that his intention was to kill himself when he had the opportunity to kill himself when he wasn't working.

And he'd been treated so well by the citizens of Clovis and Fresno, that he decided that he wasn't gonna take his life.

- That's when another outpour came, like thank you so much for the time, thousands of letters and just how they felt that that weekend was such a healing process for them.

And they were so thankful to be able to, not that they want to leave New York, but to get out of that atmosphere that was consuming their lives.

And they had had so many losses and they lost their family members, their brothers, their sisters, their wives.

It was just, so it was an outpour of help, I think for them.

And it certainly was a healing process.

- That right there is what we are doing, that's our mission.

That's our mission.

And then just touch this community more than anybody realized from the plane setting here to California for Todd Beamer and Vincent Tolbert, there were a lot of touches here.

We want this community to realize, and to, again, not forget.

(soft music) - The Memorial has seen a progression from the time that it originated with Pelco and David McDonald through its evolution with Schneider Electric and now through Quick Lane Company.

So I think the big question amongst the community when Quick Lane came in was what would become of the Memorial?

And the original creators who had so much passion and heart committed to it with that be lost, and Quick Lane Company came in and they stated that not only were they going to continue the legacy that was created, but they were gonna build upon it and make it even more amazing, more special, and really put more into it.

- I'm just proud of the entire Memorial.

I'm proud of this community.

I'm proud of how serious this community takes it.

One of the comments to me was, well, we're very happy that you guys are continuing the legacy of the California Memorial because we feel that that property comes with that obligation.

And I thought about that for a little bit.

I was at the lectern and I paused for a little bit, and I looked away and I said, "I don't like the word obligation.

It's not an obligation, it is a privilege.

It's an honor, it's necessary that we do this."

And we're humbled to be able to do it and to improve it and to continue it for generations to come.

(soul uplifting music) - What we've seen is the growth of the Memorial itself.

So it's gone from a private Goodwill cause and annual Memorial ceremony into what you see today, which is the official 501 C3 non-profit with an established board and our defined values to honor, educate and remember.

- I've spoken many times about the good things that I experienced that day.

The elderly woman, who in my memory was wearing a nightgown and slippers, carrying a Wicker basket full of an Atmos, climbing up and down that pile, just to make sure we had some nourishment so we can continue to do what we were doing.

I remember her being there the whole time.

The Restaurant owner, who could very easily have left and taken his family to safety way beyond that plume of dust and debris smoke that was there, but he didn't, he stayed.

He made makeshift tables out of these barricades.

And I remember watching this family laying down bread, spreading peanut butter, spreading jelly, and then laying more bread to give us again, the nutrients, the energy we needed to continue to do our jobs.

- I think you guys currently have a theme around Mr. Rogers and the good neighbor.

And I believe it's a quote from Mr. Rogers that says, "In times of trouble, always look for the helpers because there's always people that help in times of crisis."

So look for the helpers.

- When you think of the stories of those first responders that were there at Ground Zero day in and day out, and imagining what they saw, what they felt, I was writing the storyboards and I was writing about the dogs that were there, the searching rescue dogs, and that the dogs were walking on smoldering metal with no protection, but still doing their job.

And how many of them came out and how that sometimes in order to keep the spirits of the dogs alive and active to want to continue the search, the firefighters would actually stage rescues to keep the dogs doing their rescues.

- It was the World Trade Center family Memorial service.

And I had been asked to participate in a small choral ensemble to sing with Andrea Bocelli for the event.

And it was for the families of those that had been lost in the attack that day.

And It was extremely emotional.

It's just gonna make me emotional right now, but to look out into this audience of family members who were holding up pictures of their loved ones that never came home, that they were still holding out some sense of hope that they would be found was more grief than I had ever experienced before to just be that close to so many people that were just hurting so terribly indescribable that moment.

(soft soul uplifting music) - 412 first responders in total lost their lives on 9/11.

An amazing thing happened after that day, though, the country united as one people of all backgrounds, people of all religions, people of all races united as one.

And for nine months after that, it was cleanup and rebuilding, what could be rebuilt, replacing what could be replaced and healing what could be healed that day for forever embedded in the minds of our nation, never forgetting the first responders who lost their lives doing what was right.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, for being the heroes we needed, for being the heroes we need.

(soft soul uplifting music) - Our organization is to honor, educate and remember.

The education part, if students are aware of an issue, it would peak their interest.

And that's where we talk about the one voice events and the spirit of 9/12, where the prompt is students need to write a poem or develop a piece of art that talks about the unity.

And the beauty about this in our first inaugural year, when we did it in 2019, the number one refrain we had from students who participated and submitted was I had no idea.

- At first, it was really hard to understand why I even needed to learn about this because it was in the past.

And it just didn't seem important to me because it didn't affect me.

That's how it was at first.

But now that I've deep dived into this, and I've learned more about it and how it affected so many people, it's opened my mind to how tragic this was.

And being able to educate younger generations is something that I would like to do because it gives them an opportunity to learn from people's mistakes.

(soft piano music) - I think being able to research it and kind of connect with it more, even though I wasn't even alive during that time was really powerful.

And hearing all of the stories and just what had happened was it brought me to tears.

- The one voice event is meant to do that, to call attention to those first responders who on 9/11, really many of them sacrificed themselves to do the job they were trained to do, but it continues to go on every day in our own communities.

- Our mission at the California 9/11 Memorial is to three things.

It's to honor, it's to educate, and it's to remember.

And the second part of that is educate.

And I have two children and to them, they weren't around, they didn't feel the magnitude, the magnitude of this day, the trauma, the shock, the anger.

To them, it's like Pearl Harbor.

It's something they read about in a textbook.

And so we realized that an education component was important because now 20 years later, fewer and fewer people were around, more young people understand that 9/11 happened, but the magnitude sometimes erodes.

And so one of our primary objectives is to make sure that that what was the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world and it happened on this soil is not lost.

The magnitude is not lost.

And it's part of our mission to continue to make sure that future generations understand what happened to this country.

(upbeat music) - The one voice portion of the ceremony follows the silent ceremony.

And so it's really the progression of the honor, educate and remember.

And so we have that silent somber ceremony as the Memorial portion, and then it leads into the one voice event, which is really the resiliency portion of it, which is where we get into the spirit of 9/12, and how we reacted.

- The one voice event was a interesting development that has been, I think it's gonna drive our organization from here on out and it really is our new mission.

So we evolved our event to not only honor the fall, which we had been doing the previous 17, 18 years, but more importantly, our focus has started to evolve into September 12th, the day after.

And if you were alive and you remember the events of 9/11, you also remember waking up the next morning, glooming your heart.

You turned your TV on and you saw nothing but patriotism, everybody in America came together.

There was no Democratic, Republican.

There's none of that.

We are all true Americans.

And that was the spirit of America displayed on September 12th.

And to help promote that, the board came up with the idea of having art contest and a poetry contest where the winner going to actual 9/11 Memorial in New York city, with the parent and their teacher.

So this has been a great development in our organization.

We had great community support as far as funding this, we got great support from the schools that have their kids are sending in hundreds of pieces of artwork, poetry.

I was fortunate enough to be a judge, and I wasn't sure what I was getting into.

I didn't really have an art background.

I definitely don't have a poetry background, but it was extremely emotional.

You could help, but I think when you look at some of that stuff, the emotion and the thought that these kids are putting in to their words and to their art.

And when you see some narrative that these kids produce, you're gonna be blown away.

It's truly, truly amazing.

(upbeat music) - Yes, the contest was an amazing, amazing opportunity, especially because again, like I wasn't able to connect with it and being able to write about all these things that happened and being able to look at all these different stories was so incredibly powerful.

My poem is about the people who attempted to save others who couldn't, and about the cleanup effort afterwards and the unity and the love, and just the sense of community that we were able to experience after 9/11.

And I think that was the main inspiration for my poem.

I hope that my poem invokes a sense of patriotism.

I hope that my poem brings together a bunch of people who really experienced this event and being able to move people with poetry with words on a paper is such a crazy and powerful thing.

And being able to see all these people come together, over something that you wrote, that's just it's moving, it's powerful.

And the spirit of 9/12, especially my poem is mostly about what happened on 9/12 and what happened the day after and what happened for the weeks and months and years after, and seeing all these people come together and watching and researching all these things about these people helping each other, coming together as one was such a powerful and interesting experience.

I got an email about, I saw this ninth grader and this 11th grader, and then there was just me as an eighth grader.

There was two people who are older and probably much more qualified than me to win.

And I don't think that necessarily lowers my chances, but I think that it makes me more aware of who I'm up against and who else did a poem so amazing that they're one of the finalists.

And so I think that's just really powerful and really interesting.

And so I think my chances of winning are a third, 33%.

- The idea came to me automatically of using names, and then it took a while to choose what image I wanted to make.

And then I settled on the idea of the Twin Towers with smoke coming out of it.

And then originally I wanted to fit all the names into the smoke, but that didn't work because there was too many names.

So then I went onto the Twin Towers.

I filled those up with the names, and then it still needed more names.

So then I filled the background with names, and that was still not enough.

So then I wrote all the names on paper in the back front and back of the papers, five of them to be in total.

And then I filled it up because it's important to not forget anybody.

And if I were to win the trip to New York, I would be excited to see the Memorial because it's where the Twin Towers were.

And it has all the names of the people, and I'd recognize the names and be like, "Oh, I wrote that."

And that'd be cool.

- I don't think there's one specific part of the Memorial that I want to see most.

It's more just about experiencing being there, experiencing the city, the place, the area that this all happened in, 'cause although I've got more connected with the event through my poetry and through just this contest as a whole, you aren't there, you aren't standing where these people stood when it happened.

And I think that being able to be there, just see where everything about it is a powerful thing.

The second thing is, I'm pretty sure my mom told me that there's this thing called an Ice Cream Museum.

And that sounds like so much fun because New York is just a place of diversity.

And it's a place where you can walk over there and see ice-cream museums and rainbow bagel donut shops, and being able to just experience that diversity and experience a new culture, a new area is going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully.

(upbeat music) - Check my school email and it said it was from my art teacher, Mr. Vasquez.

And it said, "I don't know if you see the email, but here it is forwarded to you and congratulations."

And I was like, "What?"

And I told my sister, I was like, "Look, I'm in the top three."

And she goes, "What?"

And then my dad was sleeping.

I was like, "Father."

He goes, "Hmm, what?"

And I go, "I'm in the top three."

And he goes, "What?"

And he puts his glasses on, he sat up.

I was like, and he goes, "What?"

And I go, "Yeah."

And I showed it to him.

He was like, "Oh, that's so cool."

(sad music) - I think arts is the expression of emotion.

And I think it's the perfect medium by which you can translate something that is so difficult, so dark, so heavy, but to translate it into an art form that is an expression and has a cathartic feeling towards those students that are able to research and learn and express.

- So I think that it's extremely important.

The arts have always been a way for us to not only express ourselves and tell stories, but it's also a way for us to, I think, gain a greater understanding of different times in our history.

For me, it's almost, it's an odd kind of full circle event that I had the opportunity to give with my art there at Ground Zero.

And now my students will have the opportunity to give their art to honor those that perish that day.

And so I think that it's extraordinary that here in Clovis and that we are combining the arts with this event and with remembering what 9/11 means to our country.

- That's really why it started.

It started to say, look, we wanna honor those who have fallen, of course, but we wanna recognize that patriotism does exist in our country and you should be really proud of what took place after 9/11.

- So we're really excited to continue this connectivity with the students in our area with Fresno County Offices of Ed, with Superintendent, Jimmy Ravino, we have Kitty Kotania is our chair elect for the next year.

She's Retired Deputy Superintendent of Schools providing that connectivity to our students.

(upbeat music) - The one voice, the spirit of September 12th, the entries actually come into our office.

And then we have a team of the visual and performing arts department.

And some of the other educators, we bring all the artwork in and the poetry in.

And we try this year, I think we had 176 entries.

And then we try and narrow it down to the top 10 in each category.

And we're looking for things that show relevance, show the student was emotionally connected, aspects of design.

And all the things that go into an awesome spoken word, poetry or an awesome piece of art.

(soul uplifting music) - So we didn't look at everything, but the pieces that we did look at, you could just tell the kids put a lot of thought of this and you see some of the art pieces these kids are producing the attention to detail, they're capturing the spirit of the response.

See their courage come off the paper of their subjects, rushing into these buildings are holding somebody extremely emotional.

This year is winter.

I think you're gonna be blown away when you see what this person produced, the amount of effort that it took to produce it.

I can be completely honest with you when I was in high school, I would have been too lazy to produce a piece of art like that.

And I definitely didn't have the creative ability to do it.

The writing, the poetry, another one, it's some of the words they're choosing, they're capturing the moments are catching the emotion.

And me and the other judge we look at each other like, is this kid's parent in public safety?

'Cause they're truly understanding what we go through on a daily basis as far as the emotions and the trauma we seen, the things we deal with and the feelings that they evoke, some of the poetry or reading really captured those feelings.

It was very hard to read because it makes you emotional.

'Cause there you feel like you're really connecting with these kids.

Some of these kids are eighth graders, seventh graders, high school students.

And it's like for them to have that kind of insight is just truly, truly amazing.

- I do not envy these first responders and their need to judge these pieces.

When you walk up to one and you read the poetry, you think that this is it, this is my favorite.

And then you move on to the next one.

And you find that every piece has its uniqueness.

And that touches me.

At least it touches me in such a way that it's really hard to have that favorite and the deliberation is difficult, but the pieces that are presented are powerful, and is a perfect reminder of why we're doing what we're doing to see the effort and the emotion that students have put forward in these pieces is astounding.

So it's difficult to say that there's a favorite and every single one hits an emotional chord in me in a different way.

(upbeat music) - I just wanna say this, the Cook family was really instrumental in getting this together, Jerry and his sons.

And I know how passionate he is about this, but when we had our first competition two years ago, prior to COVID, the winner, the overall winner, they were sent to the 9/11 Memorial.

(upbeat music) - Do you want my mango?

- It was beautiful.

People are always like, don't go to the Bronx, but it is beautiful.

Seeing the graffiti there and seeing so much representation, especially for people of color, it was amazing to be around there and just see how people just painted on walls.

And all of the paintings that I saw, I just couldn't take my eyes away because the city was like covered in it.

And it was probably like one of my favorite tourist parts was all the graffiti.

(upbeat music) For me, winning meant that my art was able to bring out different emotions in people.

And all these people who were there at the 9/11 Memorial were just moved by my painting.

And that was something that made me feel like I succeeded because that's all I've ever wanted was to make someone feel something with my art.

(soul uplifting music) - The one voice and the involvement of so many students from across the county precipitates a sense of pride, a sense of patriotism, a sense of unity.

And as we talk about the 9/12, but 9/11 we were angry at 9/12 and for the days that followed, we were Americans.

And it's our hope that maybe that inspires a little bit more of that attitude and that perception and that that movement in this country, or at least in this community.

♪ Guide America ♪ ♪ Is name made out of love ♪ ♪ The same beside her ♪ ♪ Please guide her ♪ ♪ Through the nights ♪ ♪ With life on the more ♪ ♪ From the mountains ♪ ♪ To the graveyards ♪ ♪ To the oceans widely flow ♪ ♪ Guide America ♪ ♪ My home sweet home ♪ ♪ My home sweet home ♪ ♪ My home sweet home ♪ - Combined Command is the perfect representation of how the various organizations came together in the spirit of 9/12.

And Combined Command brings together representatives from each local agency that form the entire ceremony per procession.

It's symbolic in that nature.

And when we talk about 9/12, and the spirit and unity of coming together, Combined Command absolutely represents that.

- The emphasis was making sure everybody knew they were included.

The public safety agencies in the military really had no connection with each other.

We didn't work with each other from one fire department to another, city to city.

We just didn't have those contacts established.

So we established the Combined command, the biggest thing we wanted to get across was everybody knew, even though this was in the city of Clovis, this was not a Clovis event.

It's just a location where it was positioned.

The Combined Command for it to be successful, everybody had to feel like they had input.

And so from the very first meeting, we made that very clear, everybody in this room has input and we took all suggestions.

And from that, we evolved into the original program.

That original program and all of the programs, since that time have input from every agency branch service that you can think of, even to the EMS community, with American ambulance, everybody has a partnership, they have an ownership in this program.

That's why they support it to this day.

That's why it stands the only reason it's really been successful is egos, all those things were checked at door.

This is truly a Combined Command.

Everybody has input.

Everybody has buy-in and that's the whole point of the program is we're representing the American public who also came together on 9/12.

(upbeat music) - So the California Memorial every year on September 11th at the times of the attack.

So exactly down to the minute we have a very large ceremony, very formal, gosh, I don't know the total number, but could be a hundred pieces of first responder equipment motorcycles, firetruck, military, it's a tremendous ceremony.

In fact, it is our understanding that outside of Ground Zero right here in Clovis is one of the largest, if not the largest 9/11 Memorial commemoration ceremony every year on the anniversary.

We get people in the thousands.

It's carried live on TV.

It is a somber event.

We play the 911 calls and the communications of the events of that day.

And we have a flag folding ceremony, of course, the full honor guard of every branch of first responder you can imagine is present.

And we fold the flag and we give the... those who lost their lives we give them the respect that they deserve.

We take it very seriously.

(soul uplifting music) This year, we are adding several sculptures, including a wounded warrior, a soldier missing some limbs with his service.

And it's got a service dog.

And there's some tie-in.

I won't give up all of information, but there's some tie-in and some details in the sculptures that tie it all in to the events of that day.

- Part of our expansion efforts is to ensure that we can show all the people that were involved.

And so we've also included a military officer with a folded flag to show people and to explain the symbolance or the symbolism of the folded flag and what that means.

This Memorial is a beautiful representation of the American spirit.

So our Memorial is amazing in its expansion.

And part of it is to really show the connectivity between New York and California, all four of those planes that were hijacked were heading towards California.

And the reason why is that they had the most jet fuel, which means that they can impose the most damage.

So we feel bringing together New York and California is true to the memory of September 11th.

- The flight 93 element was designed to have two columns projecting vertically to replicate aircraft wing.

The columns will have a halo overhead.

Underneath that halo between the columns, we have a granite step and it's engraved with the slogan "Let's Roll."

Those four heroes are also remembered by the four wind chimes that will be hung there.

Each wind chime will have the name of the hero engraved on the wind paddle.

(soul uplifting music) - We have one coming up.

This is gonna be in place by this September 11th.

It's a female police officer.

The only female killed in 9/11 from the Police Department.

And it's replicating a pitcher who was caught of her.

It's a pitcher replicating her.

So the monument is in her memory.

It's her name.

Her family is supposed to be coming out to attend because this is an unveiling.

And I think that's gonna be a pretty emotional thing.

That's a very specific person.

The rest of the monuments and memorials is they are more kind of generic, but that one's very specific to a particular person.

(soul uplifting music) - One element we're really excited and honored to have is a seedling from the survivor tree.

So there was one tree that survived the devastating events on September 11th of 2001.

And that tree was brought back to life, was nurtured, and it's really a symbol of resiliency.

(soft piano music) - It is a reminder that despite the destruction that it experienced, it has flourished again and is in place where it belongs to really show the resilience of not just the tree itself, but as symbolic of the resilience of America.

And so it's really beautiful that the California 9/11 Memorial was gifted a sapling from the original survivor tree, which is now at our Memorial planted next to our wounded warrior.

- To have an actual seedling and tree from actual the 9/11 site where the sole survivor tree that was beaten up and broken.

And they helped to nurse that tree back to life.

And years later for us to get a seedling and a tree planted at our Memorial is just huge.

- It's a big honor.

And we were selected.

So we have an actual sapling of the survivor tree here that will be planted at the Memorial.

We've had it for some time and making sure it's doing well, but it will be unveiled this year.

And that's just, again, it's something that with our mission of educating and honoring, it just adds so much to that, to where kids that weren't alive that day can come and see, this tree is descendant of the only thing that remained alive there in those buildings.

(sad music) - 20 years have gone by and 20 years of annual events and 20 years of that Memorial evolving into what it is today.

It's no longer just December of 01 spot that saved my life.

It is now the second largest 9/11 Memorial in the country and it memorializes New York city, the Pentagon, Shanksville, and the lives of every man and woman that puts on a uniform day in and day out to keep this country safe.

It also has become an event that now the children that were not born in 01 can visualize and could hear the stories about what happened that day, and not just get it out of a textbook where you're educating in the hopes that I've bent a tragedy such as that morning will never happen again.

(soul uplifting music) - The 20th anniversary Memorial ceremony falls on a Saturday this year.

And so it's really the perfect opportunity for members of the community, bring out your families, bring out your friends.

It's right there at 3500, Never Forget Lane here in Clovis.

(soul uplifting music) - The commemoration this year is gonna start like it does every year.

We ask the public when it's a free event to come around eight o'clock in the morning, get themselves settled, get their seats and be ready for when the Memorial actually kicks off at 8:46.

(soul uplifting music) - I just wanna say, as Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, this is my call to action to you.

Get your students out to the event on 9/11.

It's a Saturday morning at 8:00 AM.

It'll be a beautiful morning and one that you will never forget.

(soul uplifting music) - So if you can't make it on 9/11, by all means it would be great for you to head out for it's worth your time to come see what we have here.

And I think you're gonna be surprised.

(soul uplifting music)