Home Becomes a Memorial

(Photograph by Jim West, for The Chronicle)

Leaders of two nonprofit groups in Bay City, Mich., hope they have found a way to help students comprehend the enormity of the September 11 disaster and create a memorial for those who lost their lives.

Volunteers for the local Habitat for Humanity and the Volunteer Resource Center of Bay County are teaming up to build a house whose beams will bear the names of about 350 of the victims.

The victims’ names were taken from a Web site created by the Points of Light Foundation as part of the Unity in the Spirit of America Act, signed into law in January. The legislation called on the foundation to organize at least 5,000 community-service projects by September 11. As part of that effort, the foundation has asked relatives of the victims to approve the use of the names of their loved ones in memorial projects. It will not allow any name to be used without permission.

Students from the local schools — including a 10-year-old boy and an

8-year-old girl who will live in the house when it’s finished — have been writing the names on the beams with permanent felt-tip markers.

“It was nice for the younger students who aren’t old enough get involved in the construction,” says Bob Jarve, executive director of the Habitat for Humanity chapter, who came up with the idea.

The beams are used in the ceilings and the walls of the two-story house, which is due to be completed in December. Most of the beams will be concealed when the house is finished, although some will remain exposed in the attic rafters and the basement.

Along with the names is a brief explanation of why they are there. If the house is ever torn down, Mr. Jarve says, people will understand the names’ significance.

Seeing the names on the beams sends home the message of how many people were killed, he says.

“We didn’t realize how many names were going to be there,” he adds. “You hear things on the news, but when you all of a sudden see all those names and try to put the faces with them, it shows how massive this loss of life was. It’s something these kids will remember for a long time to come.”