Not even her background as a clinical social worker could have prepared Mary Fetchet for the journey of grief that followed her eldest son's death in the September 11 attacks.
"I certainly understood the impact of bereavement and the impacts of traumatic events," said Fetchet of New Canaan. "What I didn't understand is the journey that individuals that are affected - that have lost a loved one, survived and responded to a terrorist attack - how different that would be."
In connecting with other families that had lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks - including the late Beverly Eckert, who lost her husband Sean Rooney - Fetchet learned about the challenges families faced in finding accurate information and accessing support to heal after tragedy.
While navigating their own traumas, Fetchet and Eckert sought information from government leaders about plans for the Victims Compensation Fund, the investigation into the 9/11 attacks, the recovery of remains and other issues victims' families faced - all of which they shared with the affected families.
"I realized that with somebody that goes through a loss, there's a grieving process, and people go through it very differently," Fetchet said, "… but what makes it more complicated is when it's a traumatic event and there's so many complicated issues - getting accurate information, being part of the process of that impact, being part of the process in commemorating and, of course, the magnitude of the loss and trauma of that day. It's nothing that we had ever experienced in the United States, and hopefully we never experience it again."
A year after the 9/11 attacks, Fetchet and Eckert launched a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing long-term support and resources to help families and communities impacted by tragedy.
Eckert died in 2009 following the crash of flight 3407.
Today, Voices Center for Resilience, formerly known as Voices of September 11th, has become a "clearinghouse of information" that offers support to "tens of thousands" of 9/11 survivors and victims' families and helps communities both prepare for and recover from tragedy, Fetchet said.
Among the communities they've supported, Fetchet said there's almost 3,000 9/11 victims' families living in 93 countries; 400,000 survivors that lived and attended school near the World Trade Center; and over 9,600 people that have since died from exposure to toxic contaminants.
Every September, Voices organizes an annual Remembrance Symposium in New York City to commemorate the 9/11 attacks. A full schedule of programs and speakers for this year's 25th annual symposium can be found on the nonprofit website. Admission is free, and the symposium will be available in person and through an online option, Fetchet said.
Starting Sept. 3 through Oct. 17, Fetchet said the nonprofit will be hosting a "Voices of Reflection" art exhibit that will be on display at the New Canaan Museum and Historical Society, featuring artwork, textiles, sculpture and other memorial ephemera reflecting the resilience from the 9/11 attacks.
In addition to providing information and support, Fetchet said Voices has been responsible for advocating for the creation of the 9/11 Commission in 2002 and the designation of September as National Preparedness Month, among other achievements.
In advocating for the creation of the 9/11 Commission, Fetchet she learned that "people need to be engaged and supportive of issues that impact their lives and the lives of their family."
Yet she considers the nonprofit's greatest milestone to be their contribution to the 9/11 Memorial. With help from the 9/11 community, the nonprofit created the 9/11 Living Memorial Project, an online memorial encompassing over 80,000 photographs that document the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks.
"With each photograph, the families had a story to tell," Fetchet said, "and it's so touching to hear about their loved one. It's not about how they died - it's about how they lived their lives."
More than 20 years after her son Bradley "Brad" Fetchet's death, Mary Fetchet can immediately recall his "great smile" and his "wonderful sense of humor."
"Like most older children, he was very responsible, very helpful to me in raising his younger brothers," Mary Fetchet recalled. "He was very athletic - he played hockey and lacrosse throughout his life … He had a wide range of friends. We heard so many stories about how Brad touched their life, so if you think about the impact of a tragedy, Brad had hundreds of friends that were devastated after he died."
Brad Fetchet, 24, had just started his job as an equity trader for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in the World Trade Center at the time of the 9/11 attacks, according to his mother. While her son was only at KBW for a short time, Mary Fetchet said he loved the company and its camaraderie and living in the city. At the time of his death, Brad Fetchet was planning to get engaged to a woman he met while studying at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Penn., his mother said.
Come the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Brad Fetchet had been at work on the 89th floor of the South Tower, just above the line of where the airliner crashed, his mother said. In the minutes before a commercial airliner struck the South Tower, Brad Fetchet called his parents, speaking briefly with his father and leaving a voice message for his mother, according to the 9/11 Memorial website.
Brad Fetchet was among the 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks, according to the 9/11 Memorial website.
"It was an unimaginable loss for our family, and certainly for our two sons who looked up to Brad in many ways like a father figure," Mary Fetchet said. "It has and continues to be a very tragic loss for our family."
As she and her family began the work of recovering from "the most devastating time in our lives," Fetchet said their main resources for support were their family and friends, though she noted the New Canaan community "really stepped forward" to help them heal.
"I'm forever grateful for what they did," Fetchet said. "From the day it happened, they arrived at our door bringing food, helping with the funeral, answering the phone."
Fetchet said her friends and community were also by her side to help her and Eckert start their nonprofit a year later.
In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Fetchet said she received a home visit from Bonnie McEneaney McNamara, a fellow New Canaan resident who had lost her husband Eamon McEneaney in the tragedy. Fetchet's meeting with McNamara, who now serves as Voices' board chair, would lead her to connecting and gathering with other Connecticut families that had lost loved ones on 9/11, including Eckert.
Voices was certified as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 2002, opening its first office in New Canaan that December, according to the nonprofit website.
While she knew the 9/11 community had long-term needs that needed to be addressed, Fetchet said she was surprised that over 3,000 people reached out to them for help in the nonprofit's first year of operation. She said she was also surprised by the generosity of people who volunteered their time to Voices.
"There's not enough hours in the day to meet the needs that are truly out there," Fetchet said. "I think that's an important thing for people to understand that the need is greater than what anyone can possibly accommodate, so it's become a life mission for me and my husband Frank, but also we have volunteers that have been with us for 20 years. It's very meaningful and rewarding work, and I cherish the relationships that we made over the years with so many people."
Over the more than 20 years since Voices was founded, Fetchet said she believes the need to support individuals impacted by tragic events has "continued to grow, so the expansion of our work is based on the expansion of the need that is continuing still today."
Beyond their work in supporting the 9/11 community, Voices has reached out to support the communities affected by the tragedies in Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Oklahoma City and Charleston, Fetchet said, resulting in the creation of the nonprofit's resource kit.
"We had to create a model, whether it was in the support services or the public policy," Fetchet said. "There was no model at the time, and I think the most shocking thing for me as we progressed is there was no best practice efforts after any of these tragedies … I think that's how our organization has evolved – by doing the work, we have forced the federal government to do the work … Tragedies are different … but the reality of what the victims go through, what the responders go through, is very similar despite the differences in the circumstances."
Reflecting on what their nonprofit has been able to accomplish, Fetchet said the work is "tireless" and often involves "working 24/7 to do what needs to be done," but has led to connections with "remarkable people."
"That's the real gift out of this tragedy - the relationships we made," she said.
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This article originally published at After losing her son on 9/11, this Connecticut mother helped thousands of families heal.