Adriana Villanueva, halfway left, a UNLV student, stands with different volunteers arsenic Jeff Stults sings “America the Beautiful” astatine the commencement of a 9/11 National Day of Service Las Vegas lawsuit astatine the Thomas & Mack Center astatine UNLV Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. Nearly 600 section volunteers packed astir 200,000 meals which volition beryllium donated to the Three Square nutrient slope for organisation to Southern Nevada families, organizers said. Photo by: Steve Marcus / Las Vegas Sun
By Grace Da Rocha (contact)
Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 | 2 p.m.
Sabrina Duran was a precocious schoolhouse elder erstwhile she learned the World Trade Center towers had fallen successful the Sept. 11, 2001, violent attacks.
Her fellow astatine the clip was successful the Air Force, and Duran remembers talking with him that day astir the anticipation that helium could beryllium deployed. Twenty-five years later, that representation brought her to UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center connected Friday, wherever she pulled connected gloves and a hairnet and joined hundreds of Southern Nevadans packing meals for families facing nutrient insecurity.
“9/11 is thing that I don’t deliberation anyone volition ever hide due to the fact that idiosyncratic knows idiosyncratic who was affected by that,” said Duran, a unpaid and elder quality resources manager with PENTA Building Group.
Duran was among astir 50,000 volunteers nationwide marking the 25th day of erstwhile al-Qaida extremists hijacked 4 commercialized jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a tract adjacent Shanksville, Pa., sidesplitting astir 3,000 people. Those volunteers utilized the juncture arsenic a time of service, hoping to battalion 18 cardinal meals for section communities done 9/11 Day, a nonprofit that works to crook the day from a time of mourning into a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
The nationalist work effort grew retired of a question formed aft the attacks. 9/11 Day was founded successful 2002 by David Paine and Jay Winuk, whose brother, Glenn Winuk, an lawyer and unpaid firefighter and EMT, was killed portion helping radical successful the South Tower.
Congress formally established Sept. 11 arsenic a National Day of Service and Remembrance successful 2009 done the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.
This year’s meal-packing events were held successful cities crossed the state successful concern with Feeding America-affiliated nutrient banks. They coincided with Hunger Action Month, an yearly run intended to rise consciousness of nutrient insecurity and promote enactment for radical facing hunger.
Las Vegas joined the 9/11 Day meal-packing effort successful 2025, hosting its archetypal lawsuit for Three Square Food Bank, Southern Nevada’s lone nutrient bank.
On Friday morning, astir 600 volunteers gathered astatine the Thomas & Mack Center to battalion meals for Three Square. They assembled much than 193,000 meals with rice, lentils and different nonperishable nutrient during the two-hour event.
The meals volition beryllium distributed by Three Square to Southern Nevadans successful need, arsenic the portion continues to look a increasing hunger problem.
Nearly 400,000 radical successful Southern Nevada, including children, families and seniors, are nutrient insecure, Three Square president and CEO Beth Martino said.
“Many of america retrieve the days and weeks and months aft 9/11, and that was surely a tragedy, but determination was besides this airy shining done truthful galore communities erstwhile radical were coming unneurotic to enactment each other,” Martino said. “We’re seeing that present today.”
Martino said the meals packed Friday volition assistance Three Square proviso nutrient pantries and programs for those successful request crossed Southern Nevada.
“They don’t cognize wherever their adjacent repast is going to travel from, and those numbers conscionable proceed to rise. Today’s lawsuit is adjacent much important due to the fact that it ensures we person plentifulness of nutrient to get to nutrient pantries and programs each crossed Southern Nevada,” Martino said.
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