Headline News

Rotary brings community together to commemorate 25 years since 9/11

October 1, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Joshua Drakes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Rotary Club of Orangeville Highlands brought the community together for an evening of remembrance and fundraising on Sept. 29, marking 25 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Held at the Monora Park Pavilion, Always Remember – Commemorating 25 Years from 9/11 featured World Trade Center survivor Joe Dittmar as the keynote speaker, while raising money for the club’s Community Choice Grants.

Dittmar was attending an insurance industry meeting on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower when the attacks began.

“Simply by being here to be able to talk to you about this is [a] testament to making critical decisions — many making critical decisions in the most dire of circumstances,” Dittmar said. “So, hopefully, as we go through my story, you’ll understand how the decisions of many changed and affected that day.”

After the North Tower was struck, Dittmar and the other attendees were directed into a stairwell and began the long descent from the 105th floor. At the 78th floor, Dittmar was faced with a critical decision when some members of the group chose to use an elevator.

Drawing on his experience in the fire insurance industry, Dittmar instead returned to the stairwell.

He credits this choice with likely saving his life.

He was between the 72nd and 74th floors when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower between floors 77 and 83.

As he continued downward, Dittmar witnessed strangers helping people struggling to evacuate and encountered firefighters, police officers and paramedics climbing in the opposite direction toward the disaster.

“They knew that they were going up those steps to try to fight a fire that they probably couldn’t beat,” he said. They knew that they were going up those steps to try to save lives that they probably couldn’t save. They knew that they were marching into the bowels of hell, and they knew that they were going up, and they knew that they were never coming back.”

Dittmar escaped the South Tower only minutes before it collapsed.

His story also carried a personal connection to the local Rotary community through Richard Delongte, a Rotarian and first responder who travelled to Manhattan immediately following the attacks.

Delongte arrived on the morning of Sept. 12 and spent the following week searching through the rubble. When he checked in with Red Cross volunteers, he was handed a marker and instructed to write his Social Security number on his arms and legs so his body could be identified if he did not survive.

Twenty-five years later, Delongte continues to live with health effects from his time at Ground Zero. He told those gathered that he has experienced two cancers and undergone a liver transplant.

Introducing Dittmar, Delongte said the survivor’s willingness to continually revisit the events of that day has helped encourage first responders to begin sharing their own experiences.

“Your willingness to tell this story has inspired me and other firefighters I know, who were also there to share our own difficult stories, and that’s not easy,” Delongte said. “For the first 20 years, I didn’t talk about my experience there to anybody, but you showed us that it could be done.”

For Dittmar, continuing to tell his story 25 years later is about ensuring the people lost that day remain more than a chapter in history.

He does not charge organizations for his presentations, instead describing sharing his experience as an obligation to those who can no longer tell their own stories.

“I don’t tell this story to feel better about what only breaks my heart again and again,” he said. “I don’t do it for fame or notoriety, nor do I do it for financial gain. I do this because I believe, as a person who’s been part of a historic event, it is my obligation. It is my duty to tell the story, to give a voice to the 3,000 people who lost their voices that day, so that they once more can be heard.”

Dittmar ended his address by asking those gathered to continue carrying the memory of the victims and the events of Sept. 11 with them.

“Always remember and never, never forget,” he said.

The evening event continued Rotary Orangeville Highlands’ tradition of bringing the community together while raising funds that will be reinvested into local organizations through its Community Choice Grants.

The grant program provides funding to local non-profit organizations, with residents helping nominate and select recipients. Five grants are awarded through the program, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per organization.

Rotary Orangeville Highlands previously organized Canada Day celebrations for 20 years and hosted its annual Taste of Autumn fundraiser for 30 years. Over its three-decade run, Taste of Autumn raised more than $2 million to support local organizations and international initiatives.

Readers Comments (0)