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“There is no ‘I’ in team,” is written next to Welles Crowther’s Nyack (N.Y.) High School 1995 yearbook picture, his mother Alison Crowther recently told the faculty and students at Brother Martin High School in New Orleans. So, when Welles worked with others to save lives before losing his own when a terrorist plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, it didn’t surprise her at all, she told them.
“Be the good story. Be the difference and be the change,” Crowther said, wearing Welles’ signature red bandanna and a skirt in a red-bandanna pattern.
Crowther mentioned how her family dealt with losing their beloved son Welles at age 24 and why now, 16 years after Welles’ death, she continues to travel worldwide promoting Welles’ legacy of selflessness to encourage others to do the same.
“When something devastating happens in your life, you don’t have to let it defeat you,” Crowther said, telling them to have faith in the Lord “and understand that there are things in life you don’t understand.”
The Crowther family established the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust in 2001 to “assist young people to become exemplary adults through education, health, recreation and character development” by scholarships and educational outreach. This was before his body was recovered in March 2002 with New York firefighters and emergency personnel in the command center in the South Tower lobby. Through its Red Bandanna Project in conjunction with the Fetzer Institute, Alison Crowther said the foundation strengthens notions of:
A question-and-answer session followed, with seven students asking questions.
“What would you encourage us to do that Welles did at this age?” one student asked.
“I want to encourage you to embrace what you are,” she said. “Be passionate about what you love and try new things, like Welles did.”
Crowther said each decision doesn’t have to be as life changing as Welles’ was on 9/11. “Just kind gestures throughout the day could make the difference in the world,” she said. “Enough of them can change the world.”
Exploration of courage
For five weeks, Brother Martin students and faculty delved into Welles Crowther’s life and how his actions on 9/11 impacted others through reading “The Red Bandanna: A life. A choice. A legacy,” written by ESPN correspondent Tom Rinaldi, as Brother Martin’s 2017 “Great Read” project. They learned he played lacrosse at Boston College, worked on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower and saved numerous lives while wearing his signature red bandanna to cover his mouth and nose from debris. He became known to survivors as “the mysterious man in a red bandanna.” The ESPN video, “The Man in the Red Bandanna,” produced a decade after the Twin Towers fell, was shown at Brother Martin as part of the talk.
Senior Andrew Butler identified with Welles.
“You always hear the phrase, ‘Live each day like it is your last day,’” Butler said. “Experiencing this and reading about Welles and what he did that day, he had the biggest challenge in life that day. The fact that he had no knowledge he might make it out, he did everything he could to help others,” senior Butler said. “I realized that I could be a voice to help others, not necessarily giving my life, but giving something.”
Crowther said her hope in speaking across the globe “is to plant seeds in the minds and hearts of people, so we have a generation coming forward that is going to be more compassionate and caring of others, more outwardly focused toward the greater good, not just me, as is so common today.”
Christine Bordelon can be reached at cbordelon@clarionherald.org.
Tags: 9/11, Alison Crowther, Archdiocesan General News, Brother Martin, Latest News, leadership, Nyack High School, The Red Bandanna, Welles Crowther, Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust