MIDLAND, Texas — You don’t need to be a first responder or even be related to one to take part in the Tall City Memorial Stair Climb.
It’s an event that brings people from all corners of the community together for a single purpose.
“Stair Climb is a time where we come to this event in remembrance of the 411 first responders that lost their lives on 9/11 trying to save people that couldn't save themselves," Event Director Bryce Pruitt said. "And so, everyone you see climbing here today is wearing the name of a first responder on a lanyard around their neck and climbing in their honor.”
Over the years the event has grown and with growth comes more volunteer support. Volunteers that Pruitt said they weren’t ready for at first but were more than willing to accept.
They even had to create new roles for the extra volunteers because they weren't used to having this many.
“We have grown a lot from when we started in 2017 where it was just a couple of guys putting on this event to now, we're filling up the stadium, we've got a little over 500 climbers and then but a struggle for any event, especially a fundraiser, is getting volunteers," Pruitt said. "And this year we've had an enormous amount of volunteers sign up to work our event, which we really weren't prepared for because we've never had a problem of finding spots to put volunteers, so that's been very helpful.”
Early on, it used to be that they would get sometimes at most 20 something volunteers, but this year Pruitt said the number jumped to 50 to 60 volunteers.
Not only that, attendance for the stair climb has grown as well.
Combined with the benefit concert that takes place in Centennial Park after the climb in the evening, Pruitt said they couldn’t be happier to see so much support from the community.
“Having lots of volunteers show up for this event means several things to us and my committee is the support of the event and the background of the event as well as the overall support of the Professional Firefighters Association of Midland Charitable Foundation," Pruitt said. "Yeah, them supporting the 9/11 event is important because of the mission of this event specifically, but they're also supporting the overall mission of our benevolence fund.”