This Friday is the eleventh of September.

For a lot of companies that date passes with a post and a flag. We have never been comfortable with that, partly because the people who built this company remember exactly where they were, and partly because there is something more useful available to do.

The stair climb

The Tunnel to Towers Foundation takes its name from Stephen Siller, a New York firefighter who was off duty on the morning of 11 September 2001. When he heard what had happened, he drove to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, found it closed to traffic, and ran through it wearing his gear to reach the towers. He did not come home.

The tower climbs that carry his name ask people to climb the equivalent of what the first responders climbed that morning. Our team has taken part in the Tampa climb, and people from this company have run the 5K as well. It is not a comfortable morning. That is rather the point.

You can read about the foundation's work at t2t.org.

Why a trucking company

The honest answer is that it fits.

This is a business built on people who show up when conditions are bad. When a hurricane clears Florida, the haulers we dispatch are on the road before most of the state is back at work, moving debris and base rock so that other people can start putting things back together. Nobody in that line of work confuses themselves with a firefighter. But there is a recognisable instinct in common — that when something needs doing, somebody has to go and do it.

Supporting Tunnel to Towers is one of several things this company puts its weight behind, alongside food and school programmes across the communities we work in. We do not talk about it much and we do not publish figures, because the point is not the announcement.

What this week looks like

We are not asking anyone for anything. If the date means something to you and you want somewhere to put that, the foundation's site explains where the money goes — largely mortgage-free homes for families of fallen first responders and for catastrophically injured veterans.

If it does not, then the most fitting thing anyone can do on Friday is fairly ordinary: do the work properly, look after the person next to you, and get everybody home.

That is the whole of it. We will be back to aggregate and haul roads next week.