\u201cThe red represents firetrucks, and all the vehicles represent the vehicles that drive to every fire, and all the other responders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s existing 9\/11 Memorial Garden<\/a> is located within a landscaped bed on the lawn near the school\u2019s front entrance. Inside the garden stands a sculpture designed by welding instructor Bill Ludlow, who has since passed away, and NMTCC class of 2003 welding student Jon Garnett.<\/p>\n Two dawn redwood trees stand at the rear of the garden, which are meant to represent the twin towers of the World Trade Center destroyed that day. Those particular trees were chosen because they are closely related to the Sequoia, large redwood trees grown in California, where the two flights that destroyed each tower were headed before being hijacked. Their needles turn yellow-orange each fall before losing their needles, leaving bare trees meant to evoke the two towers, and the green needles then return in spring as a reminder that life goes on.<\/p>\n In front of those two trees stands a five-sided patch of soil meant to represent the Pentagon building also attacked on 9\/11, and planted within are shrubs commonly found in the southern U.S., and white Japanese Skimmia flowers that turn red in fall and leave evergreen foliage through the winter. The mulch bed itself contains Pennsylvania wildflowers and grasses meant to remember the fourth flight lost that day near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, with flowers that bloom at all times of year.<\/p>\n In the center of the bed, now just a few years younger than the lifespan of the buildings they represent, is a stainless steel sculpture of the New York City skyline before the attacks, which was designed and built by Garnett as his senior project in 2003 and dedicated on the anniversary that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 9\/11, we went out and looked at it, learned what it meant, and all the symbolism of it. My teacher asked me last year if I would do this, and I said \u2018Of course,\u2019 and that\u2019s when I started brainstorming, and it led to this,\u201d Matt Tomczak said of this year\u2019s addition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took a while, just making sure everything was the right size, to get all of the stuff \u2014 it\u2019s a lot more than it looks like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Starting with a template he found online, Matt modified the design with help from welding instructor Rocco Sexton and teaching assistant Esther Iglesias, then had to find metal that was the proper shape and size. Once the design was finalized \u2014 and amid classes full of safety training and skill lessons \u2014 Matt used a North Montco plasma cutter in a sweltering workshop to cut the pieces to the proper sizes, then weld them together and paint them the distinctive fire engine red.<\/p>\n \u201cI hand cut all these pieces, welded them all up, filled in all the gaps, and then we had some spare pieces we could use for wheels, welded them all up, then made them look like fire vehicles. They\u2019re in their permanently, they\u2019re welded,\u201d he said, tugging on one firetruck stationed at the ready within the sculpted structure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes me really proud, of what we\u2019ve done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s long known the importance of firefighters to the community: Matt is the son of the late Jeff Tomczak, former Upper Gwynedd firefighter and town fire marshal who served that community for nearly two decades<\/a> and 25-plus years in the military prior to his passing at age 44 in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father was a firefighter, he joined Upper Gwynedd in 1996 and Allentown in 2009, and he was also a firefighter in the Air Force. In 2023 he got cancer from all of the smoke, from fire-related cancers, and then he battled for 15 months and in July of 2024 he passed away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019d be really proud of me, and just knowing that it\u2019s for a good cause. He was really motivated to make sure that their story was heard, and that it didn\u2019t just get swept under the covers, and making sure that everyone that lost their lives that day didn\u2019t get forgotten, and that they had a huge impact on everything,\u201d Matt said.<\/p>\n What does he hope local firefighters think when they see the new addition to the memorial?<\/p>\n \u201cI think they would be really happy to see this. A lot of time and effort was put into this, and being from someone who spent a lot of time around firehouses, and knowing what they do for our community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll take it into a career, everything I\u2019ve learned in the past two years. Find something that you would be interested in, something that you would do as a hobby, and build off of that,\u201d<\/p>\n As he spoke, Iglesias and North Montco school director Darin Van Norman joined the student in reflecting on living through that day, and those who sacrificed their lives to save others.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the students are going to have the opportunity to come to and spend as much time out here, reflecting on it, and the great work that Matt did here \u2014 and just continuing to remember what happened 25 years ago,\u201d Van Norman said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had students and teachers say \u2018Hey, are we still allowed to go out to the memorial?\u2019 And I say yes, 100 percent, we want to continue to encourage that reflection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As his classmates among Sexton\u2019s 46 total welding students from five sending schools at North Montco brushed up on safety qualifications, Matt strolled past a series of posters in the main hallway of the school, headlined \u2018The Day that Changed America\u2019 and showing a timeline of the day\u2019s attacks, the subsequent memorials in New York City and the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania, then highlighting the North Montco memorial garden prior to its newest addition.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did an excellent job. And then when he gets to be 50, or in 25 years, he\u2019ll pass by and say \u2018I did that,\u2019 and it\u2019ll be the 50 year anniversary. Bring your children in, and say \u2018I did that,\u2019\u201d Iglesias said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOWAMENCIN \u2014 For the past two decades, a memorial outside the North Montco Technical Career Center on Sumneytown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-283742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LAN-L-911northmontco-0911-01.jpeg\")
North Montco Technical Career Center junior Matt Tomczak welds a fire station and firetrucks meant to be added to the school\u2019s September 11 memorial garden. (Photo courtesy of North Montco Technical Career Center)<\/p>\n![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LAN-L-911northmontco-0911-03.jpg\")
North Montco Technical Career Center junior Matt Tomczak poses next to a firehouse and emergency vehicles he welded to pay tribute to emergency responders at the school\u2019s September 11th memorial garden on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Dan Sokil \u2013 MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LAN-L-911northmontco-0911-02.jpeg\")
North Montco Technical Career Center junior Matt Tomczak welds a fire station and firetrucks meant to be added to the school\u2019s September 11 memorial garden. (Photo courtesy of North Montco Technical Career Center)<\/p>\n![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LAN-L-911northmontco-0911-02.jpg\")
North Montco Technical Career Center Director Darin Van Norman, junior Matt Tomczak and teaching assistant Esther Iglesias pose at the school\u2019s September 11th memorial garden, where a new firehouse welded by Tomczak was installed on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Dan Sokil \u2013 MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n