Project Access Will Join Day of Service Movement to Commemorate Anniversary of 9/11 Tragedy

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., August 29, 2014 – This year, it won’t be business as usual on Sept. 11 for Newport Beach-based nonprofit Project Access, which strives to be the leading provider of vital on-site health, education and employment services to low-income families, children and seniors.

Instead, Project Access’ Chief Development Officer Julia Baumgarten Foster has initiated a plan to turn this tragic day into one where the nonprofit’s Board members, managers and corporate staff will have an opportunity to volunteer for their entire work day. They will be serving their own field staff -- the people who work directly with low-income families, adults and seniors -- to mirror the spirit of giving that embodied the weeks following the events of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

“I saw that many nonprofits use this day to activate a cadre of community volunteers to advance important projects,” she said. “In a short timeframe, I wasn’t sure we were prepared to implement a large-scale volunteer event, but I realized that we’ve often talked about the need for our corporate staff to spend more time in the field, and what better day to choose than a nationwide ‘day of service?’”

Foster’s motivation was also more personal. She was in New York City on 9/11 and experienced the tragedy of that day first-hand. “There are so many difficult memories from that day and time. Watching the first tower fall before my eyes; the smoke and paper debris that flew over the East River and landed right in my neighborhood; the complete shock and devastation that all New Yorkers were grappling with in that moment.”

Foster said that her father lived just a block from the South Tower. When she witnessed the first tower fall, she was sure he was dead. It would be eight grueling hours before she heard from him that he wasn’t injured in the tower’s fall. “I honestly still struggle to get through each anniversary without tears,” she said. “I typically would choose not to work on that day, if I could avoid it. But this year I was inspired to instead turn the tough memories into a day for good works.”

One of her most significant memories of that day is one of her motivators for working at Project Access now and a more poignant reason why she wanted to make this day a reality for all.

“Later on 9/11, I was driving through a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn on a mad dash to pick up my ailing cat from the veterinarian before the office was closed for who knew how long,” she recalled.

“As I passed the ‘projects’ a group of men was huddled around a transistor radio on the sidewalk. I was listening to news on my car radio. While stopped at a red light, one of the men caught my eye. We both had tears streaming down our faces and he shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of both defeat and camaraderie. We connected on such a deep level for that moment. And in the days that followed 9/11, I was so aware of the breakdown of all socio-economic barriers. For a glorious couple of weeks, we were all one people. Money and race and religion and anything else just didn’t matter. We were all New Yorkers experiencing this together and helping each other through a rough time. In the end, isn’t that what Project Access is all about? It’s people helping people through their rough times. This is the spirit I want to embody as we serve in the field on 9/11.”

Project Access serves nearly 11,000 individuals at over 60 properties in California, Colorado and Arizona.

All Project Access field sites will be open for business as usual on September 11th.

LINK TO PRESS RELEASE DOCUMENT.