A 9/11 Cross 

by Rob Jeffery 

The Heritage Museum has over 30,000 artifacts that speak to The Salvation Army’s past. They range from the extraordinary in terms of historical significance to the very ordinary. They embody the day-to-day life of a Salvationist at any given point in time.  

This simple wooden cross came from The Salvation Army’s relief station at the site of the former World Trade Center buildings in New York City. 

The cross helps tell the story of the many volunteers who came to work alongside The Salvation Army during this devastating time in our nation’s history. In the days that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Salvation Army officers, staff, and a team of more than 55,000 volunteers served more than 4 million meals to relief workers and victims in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania where the hijacked Flight 93 crashed. More than 110,000 people turned to The Salvation Army for services such as grief, mental health, and spiritual counseling, financial assistance, and other basic social services. 

It’s a visual reminder of those volunteers, some of them Salvationists, but many of them not, from all walks of life. People signed it between April and June of 2002 when the Army’s operation known as “Compassion Under Fire” was wrapping up. At the top of the cross, someone wrote “Others” — the famous one-word message from our Founder William Booth. Other messages say things like, “God bless the Sally Ann,” or “Keep the faith!” One volunteer wrote, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve all of you!” 

Connecting volunteers to our mission is such a huge part of what we do. Artifacts like the cross and the many other 9/11-related items we have in our museum remind us that even in the darkest of times, The Salvation Army is there to meet human need in Jesus’ name.