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A Flag That Flew Over Ground Zero Passes Through Central Jersey on Its Last Run Before Retirement
The 9/11 Promise Run carried a 25-year-old flag through Princeton, New Brunswick, Edison, Rahway, and Elizabeth this week, on its final journey before it goes into a museum.
A flag that flew over Ground Zero 25 years ago flew over Edison as part of the township’s 9/11 commemoration. (The Central Jerseyan)
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.
Chris Howell | September 11, 2026
A flag that has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, and aircraft carriers around the world made one of its last stops this week in Central Jersey, carried by a relay of runners retracing the 200-plus miles between the Pentagon and Ground Zero.
The flag flew over Ground Zero in the days after the September 11 attacks, according to Dan Baden, board director of the nonprofit 9/11 Promise, which organizes the annual run. For 25 years, it has traveled the world alongside a small marble cross carved from World Trade Center remains, raised at firehouses in a ceremony that includes the firefighter’s prayer.
This year’s journey is its last. Around September 18, roughly 25 years to the day since it was first raised, the flag will be retired and placed in a museum.
“It’s amazing that this has been all around the world,” Baden said. “It’s been to firehouses. It’s been on F-18 fighters. It’s been on aircraft carriers.”
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The 9/11 Promise Run began with a phone call. In 2016, founder Jennifer DePoto asked her family if anyone wanted to run with her from the Pentagon Memorial to Ground Zero to mark the anniversary. They said no. She found seven friends instead.
That first year, the small group raised about $15,000 and gave it to local charities. The next year, a larger group raised $45,000. By the third year, DePoto and her board decided to focus the effort specifically on children who had lost a parent, a firefighter, police officer, or service member, in the aftermath of September 11.
The scholarship fund has grown considerably since. Since 2018, the organization has raised more than half a million dollars for the children of fallen or injured first responders and military members. This year, organizers hope to raise about $200,000, enough for roughly 40 scholarships for the coming school year.
“We really need to make an impact for children who were affected by 9/11,” Baden said, recounting DePoto’s thinking in the run’s early years. “That’s where the scholarship originated.”
New Brunswick Fire Department members salute an American flag that flew over Ground Zero 25 years ago. (Courtesy: The 9/11 Promise)
The run is structured as a relay, with teams of runners and cyclists covering the distance in three days. This year’s route passed through Princeton, New Brunswick, Edison, Rahway, and Elizabeth before the final leg into Manhattan.
The Central Jerseyan followed the run through its stops in Edison and Rahway, where the flag was raised at local firehouses before moving on.
In Edison, Fire Chief Andrew Toth said coordinating the stop took a few meetings with other town departments, along with help from the state.
“I think for 25 years it was another day,” Toth said. “I’ll never forget where I was. I know where I was on September 11, 2001, and I know where I was on September 11, 2026.”
In Rahway, runners arrived at the fire department around 1:14 p.m., with three more firehouse stops, Linden, Elizabeth, and a final one before the ferry terminal, still ahead of them. From there, the team planned to take a ferry to Battery Park and run the final half mile up to Ground Zero, arriving that evening.
“You know that flag that you saw here has been raised probably a dozen times so far from the Pentagon,” Baden said.
An American flag that flew over Ground Zero 25 years ago flew over Rahway as part of the city’s 9/11 25th anniversary commemorations. (The Central Jerseyan)
Among the runners who passed through Rahway were Kyzer Powers, 12, and his older sister, Kelsi Mazzoni, 29, running together for the first time. Mazzoni ran the relay once before, in 2021, with Team UPS. This year, seven months pregnant, she brought her younger brother along to run in her place.
“I did more than 20 miles,” Kyzer said. By the time the team reached Rahway, they were running through their fifth state.
Mazzoni was three years old on September 11, 2001. Kaiser was not yet born. She said that gap is exactly why she wanted him there.
“If we don’t teach them and educate them, you know, who will?” Mazzoni said. “That’s our job.”
Kyzer described what the day meant to him in simpler terms. “Just trying to remember,” he said.
The 9/11 Promise Run stepped off at the Pentagon the Wednesday before 9/11. (Courtesy: The 9/11 Promise)
For Baden and his wife, Toni, the run has become an annual commitment since 2018, when their son and daughter-in-law ran the relay for the first time and needed help caring for a newborn along the way. The couple came along as support staff and never stopped.
“As we saw the impact that this has and the opportunity to serve others, we were all in,” Toni Baden said.
Both Badens are from the Washington, D.C., area, and the losses of September 11 touch their community directly. One of the organization’s board members lost her father at the Pentagon that day. Baden recalled that two young sisters from University Park, Maryland, where he once worked in municipal government, were also killed in the attack on the Pentagon. Dana Falkenberg, 3, was the youngest of the 184 victims killed at the Pentagon, and her memorial bench sits first in line at the Pentagon Memorial, according to the memorial’s own records. Her older sister, Zoe, 8, died alongside her.
Runners and supporters travel from across the country to take part. This year’s group included teams from North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, and California, along with guest speakers including a retired Marine officer who served in the Battle of Fallujah and Shoshana Johnson, the first Black female prisoner of war in U.S. military history, who was captured in Iraq in 2003.
The run’s motto, Never Forget, came from the flag’s own longtime handler, who reached out to 9/11 Promise after learning about the organization online and asked to carry the flag on its final journey, according to Baden.
By evening, the flag was expected to complete its last relay leg into Lower Manhattan, 25 years and one final trip through Central Jersey after it first went up over Ground Zero.
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.
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