Each year The Top Ten Women in Business Event donates proceeds from its silent auction to a not for profit cause or organization. Proceeds from the 2002 Event can be seen and enjoyed by all.
In 2002 “Freedom Trees” were planted to remember the estimated 2,996 people that perished during the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and today the trees tower up to 12 feet in height.
At “Landing Lights” Park, located on 25th Avenue between 80th and 79th Streets, the purplish-red trees stand as a memorial underneath the air-path of planes landing at LaGuardia, which pass overhead en route to the airport.
“Parks have served as places of healing for many people in remembering the tragedy of 9/11,” Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski said.
“This grove serves as an area for people to contemplate the tragedy of 9/11, while also regenerating themselves.”
Planted by collaboration of the New York City Parks Department and with funds raised by The Queens Courier, the “Freedom Trees” were born from a 2002 Courier editorial in which the paper’s editors called for every American city to “plant a Freedom Tree for each one of its sons and daughters.”
Funds contributed by Sal and Antoinette Zuccarello, owners of Queens Garden Florist, and raised during The Queens Courier’s 2002 Top Ten Women In Business Event helped to pay for the trees’ planting. Two groves of trees were planted – at Lefferts Park, on Lefferts Boulevard and the Belt Parkway, and at Landing Lights.
