Tunnel to Towers Foundation pays mortgages for 6 families — 5 from Long Island

Six families — five of them on Long Island — who lost relatives to 9/11-related illnesses had the mortgages on their homes paid by a nonprofit organization on the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Frank Siller, the chairman of Tunnel to Towers Foundation, says the organization has helped families still being impacted by that day and is a tribute to his brother, an FDNY firefighter who was killed on 9/11 when one of the Twin Towers collapsed. 

The latest recipients of the Fallen First Responder Home Program were the families of FDNY/EMS Lt. Anthony Cozzino, 51; FDNY Firefighter Peter Quinn, of Bayport; East Meadow Fire Department Dispatcher 49 Kevin Weeks, 46; Commack Volunteer Fire Department Honorary Fire Chief Louis Sollicito, 52; Suffolk County Police Officer Craig Capolino, 41, of Massapequa; and NYPD Police Officer Mark J. Natale, 55, of Nesconset.

Foundation officials said the recipients declined to be interviewed on Thursday, but the foundation provided statements from them.

"This gift means so much to me and my family. It has brought a sense of relief and security that I haven't felt since losing my husband," said Michele Quinn, widow of retired FDNY firefighter Peter Quinn, who died in 2019 at age 54, in a statement. The foundation is paying off the mortgage to the Bayport home where she and her four children live.

"Stephen Siller, my brother, he died on this date 24 years ago," Frank Siller, co-founder, chairman and CEO of the foundation, said in an interview on Thursday. "He finished his ninth tour at Squad 1 [in Brooklyn]. He was on his way home to play golf with his brothers. He heard on the radio what happened. He turned his truck around ... He got his gear, drove to the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which was closed for security reasons."

And then Stephen Siller strapped 60 pounds of gear to his back and "ran to what we believe was the south tower," where other firefighters from his brother's squad had responded, he said. "So, we believe he was in the south tower. We don't know for sure. His body was never recovered."

Frank Siller, of Staten Island, said he arrived at Ground Zero at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday. On the anniversary every year, he said, "I come before the sun comes up. I feel at that moment the loss of my brother."

Stephen Siller was the youngest of seven siblings, and he left behind a wife and five young children.

But it's also a reminder of his brother's heroics to help people "he didn't even know." And the foundation is a tribute to that spirit.

Frank Siller said when the family learned what his brother had done, they wanted to honor his sacrifice, and Tunnel to Towers was founded as a nonprofit in December 2001. He said it has helped several thousand families of 9/11 first responders who died in the attack or in the years after from 9/11-related illnesses, and others.

When he calls people about the foundation's decision to pay off their mortgage, they are often stunned, he said.

"The reaction is similar," Siller said. "There's silence, tears. They can't believe they'll be able to stay in the house. They don't have to worry about the mortgage. They think about the fact that maybe they don't have to work a second job. They have more time with the kids." 

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie