Mepham Key Club dedicates plaque at Brookside 9/11 memorial

The Mepham High School Key Club and Bellmore Kiwanis Club recently dedicated a memorial plaque honoring the 24 Bellmore-Merrick victims who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

The plaque now sits at the foot of a 9/11 memorial that students from the Meadowbrook Alternative Program erected at the entrance to the Brookside School in North Merrick in 2010. At the center of the memorial is a 1,600-pound steel beam from the World Trade Center.

Key Club advisers Jackie Rothschild and Desiree Zgoda and Bellmore Kiwanis liaison John Scalesi were on hand with Mepham students for the dedication ceremony. Mepham Principal Michael Harrington, who was also in attendance, said the students wanted to expand on the existing memorial.

“We just wanted to add to this memorial because it is so special,” he said. “I think the entire district is so proud to have the memorial here that was established by the Meadowbrook Alternative Program.”

The Mepham Key Club fundraised $250 to create the plaque. The Kiwanis Club donated $100 to the cause.

The plaque reads, “The Meadowbrook Alternative Program offers this relic of the World Trade Center to keep alive the memories of our Bellmore-Merrick loved ones whose lives ended on 9/11. And, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’”

Among the elected leaders who attended the ceremony were Hempstead Town Clerk Nasrin Ahmad, State Assemblyman David McDonough and Nassau County legislators Dave Denenberg and Michael Venditto. Members of the North Merrick Fire Department served as the color guard.