Stonington — Family and community members stood Friday near the memorial at Stonington Point for Josh Piver to remember the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and share a message they said Piver would have wanted them to: "Be good to each other."

Attendees at the memorial service on the foggy morning sang "Let There Be Peace on Earth" as flowers adorned the memorial bench for Piver that reads: "Play music, Walk on the beach, I won't be far from reach."

The service was one of two events to honor Piver, a graduate of Stonington High School and the University of Vermont, who was 23 years old and working for Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City and died on Sept. 11, 2001.

He was a good kid who liked playing soccer and was good in school and a hard worker, said his mother, Sue Piver, who attended the memorial service, along with his grandmother Dot and his uncle Gary. He had worked at Dodson's Boatyard, enjoyed skiing and had a lot of friends, including in Vermont, where he went to college, and in New York, where he was living in Brooklyn.

During Friday's memorial service, Dan Holdridge, who survived the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, said it's important to understand the lessons learned from that day to prevent other tragedies like 9/11 from happening. Holdridge spoke at Westerly Middle School this week and speaks across the country on leadership and appreciation. 

Holdridge said that years ago when he asked Piver's family what message Piver would have wanted him to share around the world, the message was to "be good to each other." In memory of Sept. 11 and Piver, he encouraged people to plant "seeds of appreciation."

"Start planting every day, every day, because we never know what grows from them," he said. 

Sue Piver said the community has stepped up to contribute to the Josh Piver Scholarship Foundation and the McCourt Memorial Garden in New London and thanked everyone.

The community's involvement includes the Piver Cup soccer tournament on Sept. 9 and 16 at Stonington High School.

The Rotary Club of the Stoningtons organizes the memorial service each year.

Elaine Smith, past president of the Rotary Club, said at the beginning of the service that Sept. 11 has affected everyone in some way, so the anniversary is a time to take pause and express gratitude for being here today and being able to take up their mission of helping others and turning the tragic event around, such as the way Holdridge has with his book, "Surviving September 11th," and lectures.

First Selectman Rob Simmons, who has known the Piver family for generations, during the service donated "Happy Dollars," a Rotary Club tradition, for the life of Josh Piver and his memory that lives on in his family, friends, schoolmates and scholarship, bringing "good things to people out of a sad tragedy."

Simmons, a former congressman, recounted being in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11 and gathering for a news conference with other Congress members — men and women of different political parties and races, from New England, the West Coast, the South and Alaska, who represented the diversity of the country  — when somebody began singing "God Bless America." 

"I felt at the time that something good could come out of this tragedy, and that even today, when there is so much division in America, we have the capacity to work together to give peace a chance, to bring something good out of something that was very sad and very bad," Simmons said.

He praised the Pivers for banding together to reach out to the community and raise money for scholarships so that kids who never knew Josh Piver, and maybe weren't even yet born on Sept. 11, can have an opportunity for a better future.

At the end of the service, Simmons led attendees in singing "God Bless America."  

k.drelich@theday.com