9/11 Candlelight Vigil Walk Planned In Seaford
SEAFORD, NY — Over 150 people are expected to attend a candlelight vigil walk in Seaford on Friday to remember the Sept. 11 attacks.
The walk will begin around 7 p.m. Friday at the Seaford Fire Department with speeches from attendees and a bell tolling ceremony, organizer Rosanna Morey told Patch in a phone interview Wednesday. Boy Scout Troop 581, based in Seaford, is expected to attend the walk, as is Troop 157 from East Meadow. The Saffron United Pipe Band and police pipe band are also expected to attend, as are local clergy members, retired and active police and firefighters, families who lost loved ones in the attacks, and survivors of that day.
Morey said she expects 150-200 people in all will attend the walk, which will last about 90 minutes.
"It's going to be quite big," she said.
Blue LED candles will be available for the first 200 participants. Proper health and safety guidelines will be expected to be followed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Morey said.
Organizers are in talks to obtain a police escort so attendees can walk on the street. The walk will begin on Southard Avenue and proceed to Waverly. From there, participants will head west to Seaford Avenue and south to the local Nassau County police precinct, building. From there, they'll continue heading south to Wantagh Fire Department Station No. 3 on Neptune Avenue.
Participants are asked to park along Jackson Avenue near St. William the Abbot Roman Catholic Church. Drivers should not park in the fire department lots or on the street by the fire stations in case of emergencies.
Morey said the walk was born out of the Facebook group Light Up Seaford In Blue Lights. The group — which has over 550 members — envisions the community coming together as "one sea of blue lights glowing in honor of the officers that made the ultimate sacrifice." It asks homes to illuminate in blue lights from Sept. 6-13.
"I really started this on a whim as Light Up Seaford In Blue Lights," Morey said, noting she initially expected only a few dozen people would show up. "Then I decided to do this candlelight walk and it turned into this big event."
She said the event was meant to give back to the community — 13 Wantagh and Seaford residents were among the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks 19 years ago.
"I wanted to, in this heightened climate of politics, get away from the politics and remember the day that everybody said they would never forget," she said.
Morey said she feels like remembering 9/11 could become overshadowed by other politic happenings this year. After protesters and counterprotesters with Black Lives Matter, Back The Blue and other groups made headlines in recent months Morey is being extra cautious in framing her event. It's a candlelight vigil walk that's open to everyone.
"This is really about 9/11," she said. "So let's make it what it's about. It's about 9/11. Period. There is no political content here."
This article originally appeared on the Wantagh-Seaford Patch
