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Issue #007 · Special Edition · Thursday, September 10, 2026
Hey, Fleming Island
Tomorrow is September 11. The twenty-fifth one.
We don't usually send on a Thursday. This seemed worth it, because there's something happening close to home in the morning, and it's the kind of thing you'd want to know about the day before rather than an hour before.
The Honor March, tomorrow morning
Clay County Fire Rescue, the Clay County Sheriff's Office, and other county agencies are holding a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony and Honor March in downtown Green Cove Springs.
First responders from across the area will march through town. Then, at the Spring Park gazebo, they will read the names of the firefighters, law enforcement officers, and emergency responders who died that day.
Friday, September 11
Honor March — 9:15 a.m.
Watch from along Palmetto Avenue or Walnut Street.
Remembrance Ceremony — 9:30 a.m.
Spring Park gazebo.
Chairs will be set out, and you're welcome to bring your own.
In their words: "We hope you'll join us as we reflect on the lives lost, honor those who served, and reaffirm that we will never forget."
We have two pieces of the North Tower
Almost everything that happened that morning happened a thousand miles from here. But a piece of it stands in Green Cove Springs, and it got here because people from this county went and asked for it.
In 2011, Clay County Fire Rescue and the firefighters' union — IAFF Local 3362 — applied together to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's World Trade Center Artifacts Program. They asked for steel: two nine-foot sections of exterior wall from the 68th floor of World Trade Center 1, the North Tower.
Fire Station 20, where those two beams now stand, opened in August 2025.
The county describes them as "positioned in a way that many will find familiar." They mean upright and side by side, with a gap between them. Up close, you can see the bolt holes and a plate torn half away.
Out in the forecourt, by the flagpole, there's a young Callery pear. It's a Survivor Tree — an offspring of the tree that stood at the original World Trade Center, nearly destroyed in the attacks, then rescued and restored. The plaque on site tells the rest: in 2013, fruit from that tree was given to students at John Bowne High School in Queens, through a partnership with the 9/11 Memorial, Bartlett Tree Experts, and the NYC Board of Education. That project produced hundreds of seedlings.
This is one of them. Clay County Fire Rescue applied for it in 2021.
Clay County 9/11 Memorial · Fire Station 20 · 1305 Idlewild Ave, Green Cove Springs
It's outside, it's ours, and you can stand in front of it any day you like.
The bricks are already there
They are laid in a red ring around the base of the beams, and you can read them.
Some carry the names of firefighters and police officers from New York. Some are from Clay County's own — the fire rescue training division, a former fire chief. Some are just families, saying so.
And one of them says this:
NEVER FORGET... I WAS THERE... RET NYPD SH#3124
Somebody who was there is here now.
The bricks are part of Heroes Walk. One is $200; the first section is limited to 100, and the proceeds help maintain the memorial. If there's someone you'd like remembered there, you can learn more below.
Take care tomorrow,
Shelly 🌴
Find Good. Share Good. Celebrate Good.