Ten percent of the box office receipts from the opening five days of Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, a Paramount Pictures release, will be donated to four New York-based charities that have been established to honor 9/11 victims and to provide help for their families. The amount to be given away is 2.6 million dollars.  

According to a recent press release, fifty percent of the total donation -- $1.3 million -- is being given to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation for the construction of the Memorial’s two reflecting pools to be located on the footprints of the original Twin Towers.  Another $ 1.3 million, representing the remaining fifty percent of the total donation, will be shared equally among Tuesday’s Children, the Tribute WTC Visitor Center and the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund. Each of these three organizations will receive approximately $ 433,000.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is the not-for-profit corporation founded in 2005 to realize the Memorial quadrant at the World Trade Center site.  The Foundation will raise funds, oversee the design, and operate the Memorial, the Memorial Museum and a Visitor Orientation and Education Center located on eight of the 16 acres of the site.  The Memorial will remember and honor the thousands of people who died in the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.  The Memorial Museum will facilitate the public’s encounter with the enormity of loss and the triumph of the human spirit through artifacts, exhibitions, and educational programming. The Foundation has a $300 million private fund-raising goal to build the Memorial and the Museum.  It has raised $131 million in private donations from over 17,000 donors from 11 countries and all 50 states.  For more information or to make a donation, visit www.buildthememorial.org.

Tuesday’s Children was born of a solemn commitment to the families of 9/11.  Today, this non-profit service organization continues to meet the families’ unmet and changing needs with innovative services.  With programs and offices in New York City, its northern suburban counties, Long Island, New Jersey, Washington, D.C. and Boston, Tuesday’s Children provides a wide-range of child development, family advocacy, mentoring, recreational and social service programs for thousands of 9/11 family members.  The initiatives are created with one simple goal -- to develop and provide the resources necessary to ensure that these families reach their full potential.  For more information or to make a donation, visit www.tuesdayschildren.org.

Created by the September 11th Families Association to share the personal stories of victims, survivors, rescue and recovery workers, volunteers and residents of Lower Manhattan, the Tribute WTC Visitor Center will open across from the World Trade Center site this summer. By engaging visitors in the authentic experiences of those most affected by the events of that day, the exhibits will convey the courage, loss, heroism and grief of those who responded to the tragedy. Interactive exhibits, personal greeters and an environment for reflection will involve visitors in appreciating the scope and impact of the disaster, as well as the enormous outpouring of compassion in response to that loss.  For more information or to make a donation, visit www.tributenyc.org.
 
The New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund was established in 1985 by Daniel J. “Rusty” Staub to provide financial assistance to the families of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.  After the tragic events of September 11th, the organization expanded its mission to include the families of Port Authority Police Officers and members of the Emergency Medical Service. The Fund gives grieving families immediate financial assistance and, through an annual distribution, provides help to those with lifelong financial hardship. Since 1986, over $87 million has been distributed, with an additional $35 million designated to be paid out through 2009.  For more information or to make a donation, visit www.nypfwc.org. 

Thanks to Debra Baca of Allied Advertising for sharing this important press release with ReelTalk Movie Reviews.