Heroes during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be forever remembered in Farmingdale with a monument soon to be built. It will stand four foot high by four feet wide and will be placed north of the entrance at the Farmingdale Library. The structure will feature an engraved New York City skyline including the Twin Towers. Words including "Farmingdale Remembers its Communities' Heroes," will be etched below the skyline. An artist's rendering of the monument will be unveiled during a Sept. 11 ceremony tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. at the library and the actual structure will be revealed at a later date.

The Farmingdale Community Summit will provide money for the monument and will have its name displayed on the base of the monument. The structure will cost more than $4,000, said Summit Chairman Tom Sabellico at a recent Summit meeting. The Summit has $2,100 earmarked for the monument and it hopes to raise the remaining funds. "We've raised money before anyone saw what the monument would look like," said Sabellico during the Community Summit's Aug. 14 meeting. "I'm sure people will even be more enthusiastic once they see what it looks like."

Summit members also hope community members are enthusiastic about many programs they are sponsoring during the next year. At the forefront of the list will be "Farmingdale Jumps," scheduled for Jan. 13, "Farmingdale Reads," to take place throughout the month of February and a "Farmingdale Summit Fair," occurring March 6.

Farmingdale Jumps is a basketball game featuring the Harlem Wizards, who display a comical style similar to the Harlem Globetrotters. "It will be more comical than athletic," Sabellico said. "But to be comical, you have to be athletic."

The basketball game will take place at the high school and could have the Wizards playing school faculty, the high school varsity basketball team and community members for a quarter each. The Wizards' appearance includes a halftime show and will cost the Summit $4,800 with some of the fees to be defrayed by souvenir sales during the game.

Farmingdale Reads is following up on a successful stint in March. The program teaches youngsters and adults the importance of reading. The 2003 version of the program will sponsor a fiction and a non-fiction book for residents. Snow in August, Pete Hamill's story about the friendship between a Catholic boy and a Rabbi in Brooklyn is likely to be the fiction choice, said Dr. Roberta Gerold, Summit member and school superintendent. Profiles in Courage For Our Time - a book edited by Caroline Kennedy - is a collection of essays about winners of the prestigious Profiles in Courage Award and should be the non-fiction selection. The superintendent said she also hopes to get one of the authors to help kick off the event.

The Farmingdale Summit Fair, set to take place March 6 from 6:30 to 9 p.m., sports "Farmingdale, a Community of Opportunity" as its theme. It will offer a wide variety of events, including various workshops, a health fair, politicians available to discuss issues with residents and more. "We'll make it whatever the community wants it to be," said Ken Ulric, who runs a subcommittee focused on the fair.

In other news, Sabellico announced the organization has been incorporated in Delaware as Farmingdale Community Summit, Inc. And he said the summit will soon apply with the Internal Revenue Service in hope of receiving non-profit status.