About Us

Who we are.
What we do.
Why we do it.

Our son Christopher Santora was one of the 343 firefighters who gave up his life on September 11, 2001. It was a terrible day in our Nation’s history.

Before becoming a Firefighter, Christopher was a teacher. He substituted in New York City's P.S.2 and I.S.10 and was offered a permanent position there, but turned it down because his dream was to become a firefighter like his father. Christopher was also a lover of American History. As fate would have it he now has become part of the history that he loved so much.

The Scholarship Essay Contest

For the past years we have given scholarships to students in various schools, and each year we add some more.

The winning student will be someone who has written an essay that has been deemed the best by the judges. All the judges are volunteers who either knew Christopher personally, whose children knew Christopher, or who are personal friends of ours. They come from many walks of life. Some are teachers. Some are firefighters or fire officers. Some are in business. Some are retired. Some work at home. Some are executives. Some own their own business. All take their job very seriously. They do it out of love, and we are very grateful to them.

To date, all of the winners have had qualities that our son would have admired. We are delighted about that. Christopher was a unique inndividual.

Some facts about the contest:

• The only identification that we ask for is the last 4 digits of the student’s Social Security number. We have tried very hard to make the judging as fair as possible. We do not want any information about the students until the winners are selected.
• The judges’ decision is final.
• All the schools so far have used the essay question as an assignment. The teachers have discussed the question with their students and then assigned the essay as homework.
• The teachers use the essay as a grade.
• We ask the schools to choose the best essays for submission. The judges then read and mark the final essays and select their finalist.
• There are 5 judges for each school. We then receive the individual judges scores and we total them. The winning essay has the highest grade.
• The school is contacted and the name of the winning student is then revealed.

Although this sounds complicated it has worked very well.

There are only 2 requirements for selection into the school’s final category: the student must be an American Citizen, and the student must have a B average or better in Social Studies.

Our winners have not necessarily been top students. They all have been students who wrote from their heart and personalized their essays and who took this opportunity seriously.