2001 Mets Honored for Helping Children after 9/11

By Jay Horwitz

Days after 9/11 we teamed up with Tuesday’s Children, which was charged with taking care of more than 3,000 kids who lost a parent on 9/11. Proud to say that the bond today is still as strong as ever, two decades later.

Tonight at Citi Field, I along with five other 2001 Mets will be attending the organization’s 20th Anniversary dinner. Tuesday’s Children will be honoring Bobby Valentine, John Franco, Todd Zeile, Al Leiter, and Edgardo Alfonzo for the work they did with the kids after September 11.

Thanks to Bobby, we struck up a close relationship with Tuesday’s Children and began having meet-and-greets with players at Shea Stadium. We brought them to games, gave them food, threw them holiday parties, and in general just tried to make them smile.

Over the last 20 years, Tuesday’s Children has branched out and started taking care of Gold Star families, first responders, and survivors of mass tragedies like Newton, Las Vegas, and the Orlando Night Club shootings.

“Hopefully we made a difference in some lives, said Valentine. We had a great group of guys on the 2001 team and every one of them stepped up. We are all privileged to be at the dinner tonight with such great people.”