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The school day had barely begun when a teacher’s spouse called Father “Smokey” Oats:

“Something’s happening in New York! Turn the TV on!”

It was early into Trinity’s second year. The school was still operating out of “learning cottages” and could only pick up one TV channel.

Oats, Trinity’s founding head of school, was watching the aftermath of the first plane attack on the World Trade Center when the second plane struck.

At the same time, the Rev. Dr. Stuart Hoke was on his way to New York’s Trinity Church Wall Street, an Episcopal parish in the shadows of the World Trade Center, when “all hell broke loose.” 

“Someone said, ‘Stuart, run for your life!,” said Hoke, a current Trinity grandparent and visiting chaplain. At the time of the attacks, Hoke was serving as executive assistant to the rector of Trinity Church.

Recognizing the historic importance of the morning, Oats gathered students to watch the breaking news coverage. When the morning intensified with the attack on the Pentagon, students became worried about parents who traveled between the banking centers of Charlotte and New York or relatives who worked in Washington, D.C.

It wasn’t long before parents arrived at Trinity to take their children home. A Kindergartener walking out with her mom stopped and asked Oats, “Where was God?”

Trinity, like most of the country, came to a halt for several days to gather its breath. As a school whose Episcopal identity calls its community to action, Trinity looked for ways to help. But how? Should they collect money? Hold a canned food drive?

Visual Arts Director Jen Rankey-Zona, a founding Trinity faculty member, needed to put her hands to work to process the tragedy.

“I needed to create something,” she said, “and ‘Smokey’ said, ‘I think we all need to make something.”

Three days after the attacks, Trinity students and families gathered on the field and outdoor court—where the main school building now stands—to paint messages of hope, love, and support on large canvas banners. The “day of healing” took place in partnership with the Arts & Science Council.

More than 20 banners were created and shipped to New York City. Trinity’s banners were among the first to be delivered to St. Paul’s Chapel near Ground Zero. The church became an around-the-clock rest center for first responders. Banners and cards poured in from around the world and were placed inside the chapel and the fencing surrounding the building, which sustained only minor damage from the attacks.

“The banners were unbelievable,” said Hoke, who worked in the St. Paul’s center for the nine months it was in operation. “It was the motivation to keep on going.”

As police, fire, and other personnel would enter or leave the chapel, they passed under a Trinity banner of student and parent handprints and the word HOPE. “Putting those hands in the paint and then touching the banner, they're touching Ground Zero,” said Rankey-Zona. That banner is still in place at St. Paul’s in a permanent memorial to the attacks.

Reflecting on Trinity’s response to the tragedy, Oats said, “Trinity Episcopal School has always done what it can do to make things better and to make a difference.”

Added Rankey-Zona: “It was a beautiful moment of a group of people who had no idea what to do and so they came together and used their voice for love.

“It was a very Trinity thing to do.”