Elon University’s Student Government Association hosted a memorial event Sept. 10 to honor 9/11 victims.
Around 1,000 American flags were placed across Young Commons by different organizations, such as Greek Life and athletic groups. These flags line the perimeters of the brick pathways that stretch the Young Commons field.
SGA Executive Vice President Oliver Keicher said the flags are a way Elon can remember the historic event.
“Every year, SGA honors our victims who died in the attacks on 9/11 with a memorial service, and how we contribute to remembering those who lost their lives is by placing these flags out on Young Commons so that all of our students, faculty and staff can be reminded of all of those individuals who lost their lives in that deadly attack,” Keicher said.
Keicher said that SGA collaborated with different organizations around Elon's campus to help pull this memorial together.
“We had a whole bunch of different organizations out here today, which was a really great collaboration,” Keicher said. “So out here today we have representatives from many different Greek life organizations, as well as some student athletes, who all wanted to come out here because of their drive to memorialize the 9/11 attacks.”
While SGA holds this event annually, the assistance from other student organizations is a new addition.
“The collaboration with the different student groups across campus came together within the past week, about them showing enthusiasm to work with us on this project, which was really great to see that, students taking that initiative to step up and want to help us with that,” Keicher said.
For some students, such as senior Jacob Balizer, the drive to help with the memorial is much more personal.
“My family, originally, is from New York,” Balizer said. “They were in the city during 2001, during the attacks, and I wanted to represent them some way, and represent the people that lost their lives, and kind of do something that showed that, and showed the rest of campus what Elon means to the rest of the world and the community around us.”
SGA Executive President Michael Swartz emphasized the importance of reminders of historical moments like these.
“It's important to have a tangible, visible reminder of all the families that were impacted by that day forever,” Swartz said. “And everyone's been impacted by it, in some way or another, so to be able to honor those that lost their lives, and those family members that lives changed forever, on campus is a really special thing the student government gets to do.”
Swartz said he hopes these flags bring a level of meaning and importance to the Elon community.
“I hope students can just see the flags, and even if it's just for a moment, slow down, reflect, remember, think about just the importance of hugging those that they love and calling their family and check in on people,” Swartz said. “Because you never know what can happen the next day.”
Alannah Klingsporn and Jordan Poncher contributed to the reporting on this story.