Lancaster County's annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb will be held on Sunday, Sept. 13, at Penn Medicine Park, 650 N. Prince St., Lancaster. Registration will begin at 8 a.m., followed by the stair climb at 9 a.m.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the fall of the World Trade Center towers. Once the memorial service begins, participants will begin a procession up the steps of the ballpark. They will circle it five times, making the distance of the climb equivalent to the 110 stories of the World Trade Center.

"We're just trying to carry on the motto that people developed back then to never forget," said Scott Yuill, a member of the East Petersburg Fire Company. "The way we can keep the memories there is to have this once a year."

Participants will be required to pay a set cost to sign up. Online registration has closed, but participants can register on the morning of the event.

Every year, many first responders travel to the ballpark to participate in the event, which had 335 climbers last year. Many firefighters elect to wear their full set of equipment for the climb to emulate the way their 343 fallen brothers did to rescue those trapped in the twin towers.

"A lot of them do," Yuill said. "Some of them don't, but we also have EMS personnel and police that will climb, and we also have members of the public that will participate."

In the past, the event has drawn first responders from all over the county, as well as states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland.

Similar memorial events are held throughout the country, and Lancaster's stair climb is one of the largest in the region. The proceeds from the event will benefit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. For those unable to attend the event, a donation link is listed on the aforementioned website.

The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation distributes funds to the New York City Fire Department's counseling services. Many survivors, victims' families and those who assisted in the rescue efforts continue to receive counseling two and a half decades after the attacks. Yuill said that the event usually raises around $20,000.

"They always had a counseling services unit, but with the impact that the World Trade towers had, there were so many people, so many families that needed help," Yuill said. "It helps meet the needs that they have up in New York City."

Yuill helped establish Lancaster's stair climb 16 years ago to honor fellow firefighter Ronald Bucca. Yuill met Bucca at a training program in New York before Bucca was killed by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

"(Ronald) and his partner were driving out somewhere when they heard what was happening, and they responded to the World Trade towers," Yuill said. "Him and his partner had just gotten a lady out of the towers when Ronnie went back in (for) somebody else, and that's when it collapsed."

Prior to the climb, all of the participants will sit on the field and watch the scoreboard for a "video roll call." The roll call will call off the names of the people that died, and participants are asked to stand up when the person they are representing is called. Each participant in the climb will be wearing a badge honoring somebody who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

"You think of 343 people, when you start reading their names off, it takes over 20 minutes to do," Yuill said. "That's when the enormity of the whole things hits you."