"POSITIVE, PERSONAL GROWTH OUT OF SOMETHING THAT WAS SO HORRIFIC"
Several years after 9/11, Michael Massaroli came across a plastic bin filled with condolence messages.
They had come from people around the country and world, many of them strangers, after the attacks killed his father and namesake, an investment executive. Michael was 6. His widowed mother had just given birth to a baby girl two months earlier.
"Hearing how people were so selfless and so caring to us really made me want to try to do something, career-wise, that I thought would help other people," he says.
He decided that would be public service, since he was already interested in politics. By high school, he was interning for a state assemblyman.
Now 21 and newly graduated from George Washington University, he got his first job working at a Washington firm that helps political campaigns handle their finances properly. He sees himself eventually working in government as an adviser or aide.
"I really try and at least get positive personal growth out of something that was so horrific," he says, "rather than let it break me down."
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"THE LOVE AND THE HERITAGE COMES THROUGH"
Anjunelly Jean-Pierre once had her future all figured out. She planned on joining the military and eventually becoming the doctor or lawyer her mother envisioned.
Then her mother, Maxima Jean-Pierre, was killed at the World Trade Center, where the immigrant from the Dominican Republic managed an executive cafe.
Over the next few years, Anjunelly grieved, regrouped and decided she wanted to do what her mother did. Recalling the Sunday dinners that filled the house with friends and family, "I saw how food brings people together," says Anjunelly, 34.
After culinary school and a stint as a sous-chef for an Emeril Lagasse TV show, Anjunelly now works in a setting where bringing people together is perhaps especially important: She is a manager in the Members' Dining Room in Congress.
Last September, a letter she wrote about Maxima was entered into the Congressional Record. One of the most popular dishes she's made over the years was Maxima's rice and peas, she wrote: "I guess the love and the heritage comes through."
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Several years after 9/11, Michael Massaroli came across a plastic bin filled with condolence messages.
They had come from people around the country and world, many of them strangers, after the attacks killed his father and namesake, an investment executive. Michael was 6. His widowed mother had just given birth to a baby girl two months earlier.
"Hearing how people were so selfless and so caring to us really made me want to try to do something, career-wise, that I thought would help other people," he says.
He decided that would be public service, since he was already interested in politics. By high school, he was interning for a state assemblyman.
Now 21 and newly graduated from George Washington University, he got his first job working at a Washington firm that helps political campaigns handle their finances properly. He sees himself eventually working in government as an adviser or aide.
"I really try and at least get positive personal growth out of something that was so horrific," he says, "rather than let it break me down."
———
"THE LOVE AND THE HERITAGE COMES THROUGH"
Anjunelly Jean-Pierre once had her future all figured out. She planned on joining the military and eventually becoming the doctor or lawyer her mother envisioned.
Then her mother, Maxima Jean-Pierre, was killed at the World Trade Center, where the immigrant from the Dominican Republic managed an executive cafe.
Over the next few years, Anjunelly grieved, regrouped and decided she wanted to do what her mother did. Recalling the Sunday dinners that filled the house with friends and family, "I saw how food brings people together," says Anjunelly, 34.
After culinary school and a stint as a sous-chef for an Emeril Lagasse TV show, Anjunelly now works in a setting where bringing people together is perhaps especially important: She is a manager in the Members' Dining Room in Congress.
Last September, a letter she wrote about Maxima was entered into the Congressional Record. One of the most popular dishes she's made over the years was Maxima's rice and peas, she wrote: "I guess the love and the heritage comes through."
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