Approximately 200 freshman students in SUNY Maritime College’s regiment of cadets volunteered to help ensure the success of Manhattan’s annual Tunnel2Towers Race. The freshman class is around 350 students.

The students spent most of day on September 23 helping to organize the race, which is held in honor of a firefighter who ran from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The firefighter, Stephen Siller, died during the rescue operations.

The students helped to set up before the race, including putting up corrals for runners, and cleaning up after the 3.5-mile race. Several of them also ran it.

This is the second year Maritime students volunteered to help; one of the college’s former students is related to Siller. Last year, his classmates decided to make the race their group’s service project. This year, the entire class took the project on.

“The race organizers really appreciated the help last year, so we said that this year, we would send more,” said junior Gabrielle McCracken, chief indoctrination officer of the college regiment of cadets. “Our campus is so close to Manhattan so this is something that resonated for us.”

The college’s regiment of cadets is a disciplined lifestyle program designed to help students learn leadership skills and personal accountability. In addition to their bachelor’s degrees, many of the students in the program are working toward a U.S. Coast Guard license, which qualifies them to work in the commercial shipping industry. The regiment is not affiliated with the military.

Every year, all of the new students in the regiment are required to do a community service project. In the past, they have hosted blood drives, raised money for various charities and assisted in campus beautification projects.