Frank Siller has been walking for a long time. He’s been walking in the blazing summer heat and occasionally in the pouring rain. By Sept. 11, Frank, 68, will have walked nearly 500 miles to honor his brother, Stephen.
Siller is covering six states in six weeks, from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It’s personal to him. It’s the day his brother sacrificed his life for fellow Americans.
“We want to remember everyone who died on 9/11. There were so many acts of heroism on that day. It’s incredible. Some stories are told. Some stories are not,” Siller told me on the phone, his Staten Island accent thick. He was resting briefly in Winchester, Virginia, halfway through his journey.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Stephen, an orphan and the youngest of seven siblings, had just finished his shift with Brooklyn’s Squad 1 when he heard about the need for firefighters at the World Trade Center towers. He drove his truck to the entrance of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, but it had already been closed. Undeterred, the dedicated firefighter, husband, and father of five strapped 60 pounds of gear to his back and ran on foot through the tunnel to the Twin Towers three and a half miles away. Stephen died that day rescuing others. Based on reports from Stephen’s squad, his family believes his remains rest somewhere deep in the ground where the South Tower once stood.
Stephen’s death sparked the life of an organization that has now touched millions of people. His selflessness made starting the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation an easy decision for Frank, who does not take a salary from the organization and who has used his previous business experience as an entrepreneur to grow the nonprofit group. Frank started the foundation as a way to help families that lost loved ones on 9/11. It has since developed into something much more.
The organization is funded primarily via recurring donations of just $11 per month from people nationwide. Tunnel to Towers hosts 100 runs across the country. Its largest, most popular run is a 5K run/walk in New York City at the end of September.
The foundation also pays off the mortgages for the families of first responders who died of 9/11-related illnesses. What it’s most famous for, though, is paying off the mortgages of fallen first responders and Gold Star Families and providing smart homes to catastrophically injured service members.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the foundation will build and deliver 200 mortgage-free homes to fallen police officers and firefighters, catastrophically injured veterans and Gold Star families. “We’re blessed that we have the Home Depot. They give us millions of dollars. They help us build smart homes for amputees or quadriplegics. The Home Depot sees where their money is going,” Frank said.
The program started small. In 2009, Frank went to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and met Sgt. Brendan Marrocco, the first quadruple amputee ever to survive a war and return home. Frank asked Marrocco if he could build him a smart, efficient home that would help meet the needs of a veteran man badly injured yet hoping to regain his independence. That snowballed: In 2020, the foundation built 70 houses. This year, it has committed to 200.
With the help of companies such as the Home Depot, GMC, and local contractors and tradespeople, TTF builds “smart” homes for first responders and members of the armed forces who have experienced catastrophic injuries in the line of duty resulting in multiple amputations or paralysis. These homes typically feature specific, high-tech designs that can help lessen some of the daily burdens of those who have experienced such debilitating, severe injuries and enable them to live on their own.
They boast features such as wider doorways and automatic door openers, to make maneuvering around easier. The contractors and builders take full advantage of technology by including backup generators, tablet-controlled air conditioning or heat, room-to-room intercoms, surveillance cameras accessible via smartphone, and sensor-controlled lighting. Everything in the homes, from the television to lighting, can be operated via a tablet. Some of the homes feature showers that can accommodate a wheelchair or kitchen countertops and sinks that can move up and down to wheelchair level.
Staff Sgt. Johnny “Joey” Jones is the beloved host of Fox Nation Outdoors and a regular guest on networks providing military analysis. He was also the recipient of a smart home through TTF in 2019. Jones enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and was deployed to Iraq and then Afghanistan and worked as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. On Aug. 6, 2010, he came into contact with an improvised explosive device and, as a result, lost both of his legs above the knees and also sustained damage to his right arm and left wrist. TTF paid off the mortgage on his home in Georgia and then renovated it.
“The security of knowing my home is paid for is life changing. I work a lot right now, but sooner or later my legs will limit that quite a bit and to know I’ll have a home really takes a ton of stress away,” Jones wrote in a message.
To date, TTF has provided hundreds of homes for Gold Star and other similar families in need. When I asked Frank Siller if it was getting harder to raise funds and awareness for an organization tied to a devastating event that happened nearly 20 years ago, Frank didn’t hesitate. “No, it’s not harder. Because of what we’re doing, people are joining us. They know we’re not wasting a nickel.”
Although they didn’t get to see their grown children’s accomplishments or sacrifices, Frank and Stephen’s parents raised their seven children under the guiding philosophy of St. Francis of Assisi. Stephen lived by one of his many encouraging aphorisms: “While we have time, let us do good.” It’s clear from his heroic death that Stephen did that. It’s just as clear from Frank’s life that he is using the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation to do good for thousands of families that have sacrificed much for this country.
Frank believes their work will continue far beyond the 20th anniversary of his brother’s death and that somber day Americans will never forget. “I know the reason why we are successful is because of our mission and what we do. The mission speaks for itself. $11 donations add up. Every time we build a house, people can say, ‘Hey, I was part of that house.’ We want people to do that. It is up to Americans to take care of these heroes.”
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
