The PATESI Foundation Selected for 9/11 Day Grant to Mobilize Youth Through Districts for Dignity™

September 2026

National Announcement: Read 9/11 Day's announcement: “9/11 Day Awards $3 Million in Grants to Foster Service Opportunities Nationwide for 25th Anniversary of 9/11”

Turning Remembrance Into Action

The PATESI Foundation, Inc. is honored to be among the organizations receiving grant support as part of the nationwide observance of the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001 and the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance.

This year, 9/11 Day announced $3 million in grants to approximately 200 nonprofit organizations, schools, and community groups across 40 states, dramatically expanding opportunities for Americans to serve in their own communities. More than 70 percent of the funding was awarded to youth organizations, K-12 schools, universities, and other educational institutions.

For the PATESI Foundation, being part of this national movement carries profound meaning.

Twenty-five years after September 11, an entire generation of young people is coming of age without personal memories of that day. Yet they can still inherit one of its most enduring lessons: when communities face extraordinary circumstances, we have the power to choose compassion, unity, and service.

That is the spirit behind Districts for Dignity™.

Districts for Dignity™: A New Generation Serves

With support from the 9/11 Day grant program, the PATESI Foundation will bring students together through Districts for Dignity™, a youth-led service initiative designed to transform schools into hubs of compassion, leadership, awareness, and action.

Students representing participating high schools will work alongside Youth Ambassadors, school leaders, community partners, volunteers, and The PATESI Foundation to address an often-overlooked form of poverty: lack of access to essential menstrual and postpartum supplies. Rather than asking young people simply to learn about service, Districts for Dignity™ invites them to lead it.

Youth Ambassadors will recruit and organize their peers, educate their school communities, lead awareness activities, collect essential products, assemble emergency menstrual kits, and help mobilize their schools around a shared purpose.

Through a spirited interschool challenge, participating schools will demonstrate what can happen when young people turn empathy into measurable community impact. The initiative will culminate in a special gathering where students come together not simply as competitors, but as one generation united in service.

Remembering September 11 Through Service

Districts for Dignity™ is rooted in something larger than a single event or service project.September 11, 2001 was a day of devastating loss. In the hours, days, weeks, and months that followed, Americans also witnessed extraordinary acts of courage, generosity, sacrifice, and compassion. First responders ran toward danger. Neighbors cared for neighbors. Volunteers stepped forward. Communities came together.

That spirit of service became part of the legacy of September 11. In 2009, September 11 was formally designated as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, creating an enduring opportunity for Americans to honor those who were lost, those who survived, the families forever changed, and the first responders and countless individuals who rose to serve.

For the PATESI Foundation, remembrance must also inspire action. Through Districts for Dignity™, students who were not yet born on September 11, 2001 will have an opportunity to understand its legacy not only through history, but through service.

They will learn that service does not always require solving the world's largest problems at once. Sometimes it begins by noticing an unmet need in your own community and deciding that someone else should not have to face it alone.

Dignity Is a Community Responsibility

At the heart of Districts for Dignity™ is a simple belief: access to basic menstrual and postpartum necessities should never determine whether someone can participate fully in school, work, family, or community life with dignity. The PATESI Foundation has spent years addressing menstrual and postpartum poverty through education, product access, community partnerships, youth engagement, and direct service.

Districts for Dignity™ takes that mission one step further by placing young people at the center of the solution. Students will not simply assemble products. They will learn why the need exists. They will not simply collect donations. They will learn how to mobilize communities. They will not simply earn service hours. They will discover that their time, voices, leadership, and compassion have value. And perhaps most importantly, they will see that meaningful change does not always begin in government buildings or boardrooms. Sometimes, it begins in a school hallway.

Part of a National Movement

The PATESI Foundation's work will take place alongside service efforts across the country as 9/11 Day seeks to make the 25th anniversary one of the largest days of doing good in America.

The national grant initiative, administered in collaboration with AmeriCorps, will support locally led projects addressing needs ranging from hunger and veteran support to education, neighborhood improvement, community care, and youth service.

Together, grant recipients are expected to engage thousands of volunteers nationwide. We are deeply honored that the PATESI Foundation and the young people participating in Districts for Dignity™ will contribute to that collective impact.

A Message From Our CEO & Co-Founder

“Twenty-five years after September 11, we have an extraordinary responsibility to help young people understand not only what happened that day, but what happened afterward; people showed up for one another.

Districts for Dignity™ gives our students an opportunity to carry that legacy forward in a way that speaks directly to the needs they see around them today. They will lead. They will recruit their peers. They will serve. They will learn that dignity can be restored through something as simple and powerful as recognizing another person's need and choosing to do something about it.

My hope is that long after the kits are assembled and the competition has ended, these students remember how it felt to come together for someone they may never meet. That is how service becomes leadership, and how remembrance becomes legacy.”

Yvonne Esipila Patron, CEO & Co-Founder, The PATESI Foundation, Inc.

We Serve to Remember

As we approach September 11, 2026, the PATESI Foundation is proud to stand alongside organizations, educators, students, volunteers, and communities across the nation in transforming remembrance into meaningful service. We honor those who lost their lives. We remember the courage of first responders and all who rose to help. We teach a new generation what happened, and then we invite them to carry forward what came next: Compassion, unity and service. 

Through Districts for Dignity™, our young people will do more than remember history. They will help write the next chapter of its legacy.