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Fair The Emmas take the essay-writing prizes
Annual accolades awarded in memory of Lynbrook resident Andrew Stern
Each year, students from the East Rockaway School District compete in the Andrew Stern Memorial Essay Contest, in memory of Stern, an East Rockaway resident and alumnus who lost his life in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. This year’s winners displayed a fitting, if accidental, tribute to him.
“Each year when we review the essays we do so anonymously, each essay has a number rather than a name,” said Stern’s sister, Lisa Burch, smiling. “This year when I emailed the superintendent with the numbers, and she let me know the names of the students that won, I was a really taken aback and I thought there must have been a mistake. Each of our three winners is named Emma, and that is Andrew’s daughter’s name.”
Emma Foley-Sapio, Emma Neary and Emma Nicoletti received the elementary school, middle school, and high school awards, respectively, at Feb. 24’s board of education meeting. Their essays this year focused around the newly opened National September 11 Memorial and Museum, located at the site of the former World Trade Center, and how it can be used to educate visitors about the events of that day.
“I was very surprised and really happy when I found out about the award,” Neary, an eighth grader at East Rockaway Middle School, said. She visited the memorial with her class earlier this year, and said she’s seen first hand just what a powerful teaching tool it can be. “We visited the museum earlier this year and it was just an incredible place to see and I learned so much there.”
Her essay focused on the power of a museum to educate future students in ways that lesson plans and textbooks cannot.
“When I visited the museum, I never knew about all the people that were missing. I always assumed people knew right away what happened,” she wrote. “In 100 years, a child can visit and learn how on that day, two towers fell, and the world changed forever.”
Nicoletti’s essay said the memorial showed visitors one part of that day that would be almost impossible to see without firsthand testimony found in the museum.
