25 years after 9/11, Alonso High School students unseal letters written by peers in 2001

TAMPA, Fla. - History came full circle at Alonso High School Friday when current students unsealed 92 letters about 9/11, written by teens who sat in those same classrooms 25 years ago.

The assignment

The backstory:

25 years ago, Carey DiPompo was teaching American government in her Alonso High School classroom when news of the attacks broke.

She vividly remembers watching the tragedy unfold on one of only two televisions on campus.

"I was very afraid. I was very fearful," DiPompo said.

Knowing her students were also struggling to process the unthinkable events, DiPompo gave them an assignment: Write down their feelings and experience in a letter to future students.

She gave them the actual assignment about a month after Sept. 11 – and encouraged students to include newspaper clippings or other visuals from that time.

Present day

What we know:

For a quarter-century, those 92 letters – decorated in red, white, and blue paper -- sat untouched and sealed.

On Friday, current Alonso High School students opened the envelopes for the very first time.

"I was so excited, but also at the same time, it's very scary because you don't know what you're going to read about," senior Kherington Kurella said.

As the teenagers read through the pages — some handwritten, others typed on typewriters — they discovered personal accounts from peers who sat in those same classrooms 25 years prior.

"I was in shock because I have an aunt that works in the first World Trade Building and three that work in the same area. I was uncomfortable the rest of the day. I felt helpless the whole day," read senior Sam Garmendia, reciting one of the 2001 letters. "You never realize how lucky you are until something like this happens to you. Every day we wake up with more privileges than most countries, and we take advantage of it. I've never seen the American people come together like this. Everyone's trying to do their part to help. I was born in New York and was there in the summer. The World Trade was one of the places I went to, but I never got to go on top of the building to see the view. The New York skyline and the people of America will never be the same again."

What they're saying:

"Just being able to read it from someone who's close to my age really resonated with me in a different way," Kurella said.

"Having that fear, that unknowing of whether someone that's so close to you is even alive or not, even on this earth anymore, I can imagine that being a really terrifying experience for sure," Garmendia told FOX 13.

"The one thing I hope happens today is that kids learn what empathy is. Not sympathy, but empathy," DiPompo said. "You can teach historical facts to anybody, but that's not really what history is about. It's about teaching kids exactly not only what happened, but how did it affect you and others."

Tampa