On Sept. 10, the Kewaskum 9/11 Memorial and Education Center put out a press release announcing that it will be launching a $4 million capital campaign to build an indoor Education Center to be the Midwest’s central location for ensuring future generations learn about and understand what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. The plan is for the facility to be 4,500 sq. ft. and it will allow the current outdoor Memorial to be a year-round destination for schools, families, veterans, first responders, survivors and the community all throughout the Midwest. They are planning for the facility to have interactive exhibits, school and community programs and numerous educational opportunities.
The world is at a time where an entire generation of Americans have not experienced the effects of 9/11 as they were born and grew up after the events. Now is a critical time to build a center like this to ensure those generations continue to learn and remember what happened on that fateful day. “We are reaching a point where nearly every student who walks through our Memorial was born after September 11,” said Board President of the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial & Education Center Dr. Mark Bazata in the press release.
It is especially important to have a center here in the Midwest as many people who lost their lives were from here, including 18 victims with ties to Wisconsin, and not many people may ever get the chance to visit the memorials in New York, Pennsylvania or the Pentagon. “They shouldn’t have to travel a thousand miles to understand what happened that day, who we lost, how Americans responded and why those lessons still matter,” said Dr. Bazata.
The Center’s mission is more than just teaching people about the facts of 9/11. It’s also about teaching visitors of the 2,977 individuals who lost their lives that day, the first responders and military personnel who answered the call to help and the many lives that were affected after.
“‘Never Forget’ has to mean more than remembering a date,” said Gordon Haberman, father of Andrea Haberman of Kewaskum who was killed in the North Tower while in New York for a business trip. “We want young people to leave here asking themselves the question: ‘How can I serve?’... Service beyond self has always been part of the American story, and one of the most important lessons of September 11 is what ordinary people are capable of when they choose to serve others.”
In 2024 alone, thousands of people came to Kewaskum to visit the Memorial, including over 850 students across Wisconsin counties. This showed the organization the growing demand in need for a bigger and more full-time center. The current outdoor Memorial already offers grade-specific educational resources and programs, and the indoor Education Center will allow for those programs and more to expand greatly, regardless of weather conditions.
“25 years ago, Americans promised that we would never forget,” Bazata said. “Keeping that promise now means teaching people who weren’t there. This Education Center is how we pass the responsibility of remembrance and the responsibility of service from one generation to the next.”
Individuals, businesses, foundations, and organizations interested in supporting the capital campaign can learn more at the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial and Education Center website at www.wisconsin911memorial.com/.
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