More than 100 community members and faith leaders shared meals and prayers at King Plaza on Thursday, Sept. 10, marking 25 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The interfaith peace picnic, organized by Palo Alto resident Samina Sundas, drew Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders alongside families and teenagers to the downtown plaza for an evening of reflection. Sundas is the founding executive director of the American Muslim Voice Foundation, which she started after the 2001 attacks to build bridges between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

The gathering began as a candlelit vigil shortly after 9/11 and has grown into an annual tradition, NBC Bay Area reported.

"I remember growing up in a post-9/11 America, and a lot of those wounds and those pains and those traumas are still ever-present in our community," said Musa Tariq of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Several attendees shared first-hand accounts of discrimination and threats they faced in the months and years after the attacks. Others remembered exactly where they were that morning.

Not everyone at the picnic had those memories. Some teenagers in the crowd had not been born when the planes struck and were learning the history through their neighbors' stories.

Rabbi Heath Watenmaker of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills said the 25th anniversary made the gathering feel especially significant. He said it was important to show up for neighbors through the interfaith program.

The Rev. Dr. Eileen Altman, associate pastor of First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, said she hoped gathering together would remind people they are connected and can build a better world.

The Palo Alto City Council approved a special proclamation earlier that week, honoring those who showed courage on Sept. 11, 2001. Mayor Vicki Veenker spoke at that meeting about her own experience that day. Veenker, a patent attorney who regularly traveled to New York City early in her career, recalled waiting for news about 650 employees in her firm's New York office, according to Palo Alto Online.

The peace picnic has not always proceeded smoothly. In September 2024, the city rescinded a $2,000 grant supporting the event after CAIR joined as a co-sponsor, Palo Alto Online reported at the time.

Sundas said the foundation remains committed to the annual event because personal relationships are the path to peace. Get to know your neighbors and colleagues, she said, and peace follows.