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Valley 9/11 committee serves spaghetti and meatballs for memorial
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TASTY: Corey Cook, 4, of Boardman filled his plates with spaghetti and cake for a fundraiser by the Mahoning Valley 9/11 Memorial Committee. The Cook family’s contributions on Sunday will go toward a memorial for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN – Spaghetti and meatballs might not sound like a typical all-American meal, but on Sunday it was every bit as red, white and blue as mom’s apple pie.
The Mahoning Valley 9-11 Memorial Committee hosted a spaghetti dinner to help raise money toward a memorial the committee has sponsored and built to honor fallen heroes who died during terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Pat Connolly of Austintown, committee chairman, said some $150,000 has been raised so far over the past 41/2 years, but another $40,000 or so is needed to complete the project, which he said is about 85 percent finished. That’s why the committee holds events like Sunday’s dinner at St. Brendan’s Church on the city’s West Side. It also sponsors golf outings, raffles, craft shows and other fund-raisers.
“We’re out there trying,” Connolly said. “You have to be, because [money] isn’t going to come to you. You have to go get it.”
The memorial is located on South Raccoon Road, across from Austintown Middle School. It includes a gazebo, a chapel, pagodas, lights and brick walkways.
There is also a 1,000-pound chunk of concrete from the crash site at the Pentagon, dirt taken from the field where United Airlines Flight 93 landed near Shanksville, Pa., and a piece of an iron beam from the World Trade Center in New York City.
Connolly said the committee is trying to secure a larger piece of metal from the WTC, which will be welded together with the smaller, current piece, to form a cross and displayed at the memorial.
Connolly, a retired General Motors employee, said he’s proud of the fact that he’s been able to keep his word to township trustees that no public funds would be needed to build or maintain the memorial.