CRANBERRY TWP — On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the township volunteer fire company will break ground for its memorial honoring first responders who died in the attacks.

The design of the 9-11 memorial will be unveiled at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Park Fire Station on Route 19.

Initial plans for the memorial show a scaled-down image of the World Trade Center site, including its streets and buildings, according to volunteer firefighter Jeff Berneburg, who is a project manager for McIlvried, DiDiano & Mox, a planning, engineering and surveying partnership in Warrendale.

The memorial, which will be focused around a damaged 832-pound steel beam recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, will be built in front of the fire station.

“It’s a community memorial. It just happens to be located at our fire station on Route 19,” said Bruce Hezlep, fire company president.

“We want it to be an educational tool for Seneca Valley and neighboring school districts for when 20 years from now when 9-11 becomes a distant memory. We don’t want people to forget what happened.”

Hezlep hopes the monument will be done in April, which would be the one-year anniversary of when the piece of structural steel from the Twin Towers arrived in the township.

Design services for the memorial were donated by McIlvried, DiDiano & Mox, and by Herbert, Rowland & Grubic engineering of Cranberry.

Berneburg was instrumental and the visionary on the design for the memorial, according to Hezlep.

Township manager Jerry Andree said, “Incorporating a piece of steel from the World Trade Center in a memorial for our community reminds all of us of that day and what it meant to us as a community and a nation and in a very personal way.”

As time goes on, he said, many residents will never have seen or been in the World Trade Center. They will only know what they have read or heard about.

“This memorial is a piece of history that will remind all us on a continual basis about freedom and the cost of freedom and the importance of taking pause in our daily lives and to remember what is really important to us, and to never take anything for granted,” said Andree.

Officers from all of Cranberry’s public safety services will be present at the ceremony.

The fire company’s tower ladder truck will display its large American Flag, as it has done for the past decade in remembrance of 9-11.

Hezlep stressed that no tax dollars are being spent on the memorial.

The Cranberry Township Community Chest donated $10,000 for the construction.

The fire company plans to soon kick off a fundraising campaign to raise $50,000 by the end of November.