Swampscott student to organize event to remember 9-11 victims

SWAMPSCOTT – A local teenager is organizing a community service project to ensure that nobody forgets the victims of 9-11, although she herself admits that she remembers very little about the day – after all, she was only four years old at the time.”I remember that everybody was really sad for a long time,” Moira Landry, 14, said of the day. “But I didn’t understand until a few years later what happened. To me, since it’s a day of service, it’s a good opportunity to take something positive out of something so horrible and see that there’s hope for the future.”On Sunday, Sept. 11, Landry will demonstrate that hope for the future. She is organizing a crafts project that will create bracelets to benefit local homeless children and design Well-Wish Cards of Hope that will be sent to families in Massachusetts who lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks.The Swampscott High School freshman is organizing the effort in conjunction with the nonprofit organization she founded, Hope for Creativity, as well as the local volunteer group Boston Cares and Project 351.The latter was an initiative by Gov. Deval Patrick that brought Landry together with 350 other student volunteers representing each community in the Commonwealth for a statewide day of service last January.Each of the 351 volunteers was asked to organize a project for the National Day of Service to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9-11.For her project, Landry will hold her nonprofit’s next Community Night at the Swampscott Fire Station as part of the town’s memorial service for victims of the terrorist attack.At Hope for Creativity Community Nights, volunteers craft bracelets of safety pins and glass beads to sell online to pay for the purchase of art supplies to be delivered to homeless shelters throughout the state.Since the organization began in 2009, Landry and her volunteers have donated 600 kits containing construction paper, tape, crayons and more to children ranging from ages 2 to 18.”Being creative has always been an outlet for me,” Landry explained. “It’s a lot of fun to just sit down and draw and be a kid. I wanted everybody to have that opportunity.”The arts also have wide appeal – for both recipients of the kits and for the volunteers in the organization who put the kits together.”Art is genderless and ageless,” Landry’s mother, Mindy Hanlon, added, noting that the organization has volunteers of all ages. “No matter your age and gender, it works for everybody in some way.”On Sept. 11, the bracelets will be beaded in red, white and blue. Volunteers can also design cards to send to each of the 206 families in Massachusetts who lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks. All materials will be provided, Landry said, and all are welcome to participate.Landry said that, although she might not remember the specifics of that momentous day 10 years ago, the lesson of volunteerism demonstrated by those directly responding to the attacks and serving their country and community are important to everyone.”I think it’s good not only to honor and remember people who died in the attacks, but also to do service yourself,” Landry said. “For me it’s a really satisfying thing working towards a common goal. Sept. 11, 2001 “made a lasting impression on a lot of people even though they don’t necessarily remember it.”