There are 403 reasons that a group of about 110 people from the area plan to walk or run on Sept. 29, some of them in firefighting turnout gear as New York City firefighter Stephen Siller did on Sept. 11, 2001.
Siller sprinted through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the World Trade Center as one of 403 first responders who lost their lives on that fateful day, while saving the lives of countless others.
Jackie Pellek, of Byram, organizer of the area initiative "403 Reasons to Run 2019," calls her group's annual participation at the event "by far the most moving thing I've done." Pellek, an eighth-grade science teacher, spends some of her time off over the summer recruiting participants for their team. Her husband, Michael Pellek, a fire official for Roxbury Township, past assistant chief for the Byram Township Fire Department and past chief for the Netcong Fire Department, is one of the participants who dons his turnout gear for the 5K, she said.