Jon Stewart explains his ongoing philanthropic support of first responders

Jon Stewart says he never really decided to focus his charity efforts on first responders and their families. It just happened.

The award-winning host of “The Daily Show” said he wanted to feel useful and support people who dedicated their lives to helping others.

“These aren’t the X-Men,” Stewart told The Associated Press. “They’re not superheroes. They’re just men and women that made a decision. And that decision was, ‘I’m gonna be there for people in their worst moments. Whatever happens, happens. But that’s what I’ve decided to do.’”

His support of the first responders to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 led to his angry lobbying and Congressional testimony in 2019 to ensure that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund did not run out of money. He pushed to eliminate a loophole in the PACT Act that left U.S. troops exposed to radiation during the Afghanistan War without medical coverage. And it continues, as he announced Friday that he would return as host of the First Responders Children’s Foundation’s Roll Call of Heroes ceremony in New York’s Times Square on Oct. 28 to commemorate National First Responders Day.

“You get to stand face to face with the individuals that are being honored and give them an ‘attaboy’ and to meet really young people that are involved in their communities,” he said. “It’s always nice to be able to kind of touch the firmament of what holds this all together.”

First Responders Children’s Foundation President and CEO Jillian Crane said the nonprofit is thrilled Stewart will return to host this year’s event.

“His advocacy for first responders, especially those battling 9/11-related illnesses, makes him the perfect host for this annual event,” she said. “As the only national nonprofit dedicated to the children of first responders, we believe shining a light on their parents, heroes who serve our communities every day, is a powerful way to say thank you.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Why is supporting first responders and their families so important?

If we can’t take care of the people that take care of us, it exposes a deep fundamental flaw in the kind of scaffolding you put up in making a society. Obviously, having had the experience after 9/11, you see just how tenuous the experiment is without people who are willing to run towards the collapse. I think that, combined with the kind of outrage at a political system that was more than willing to laud them when they were needed and more than willing to discard them when they were no longer at the focus. I think that created the momentum.

Does supporting the children of first responders offer you a sense of hope?

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It’s like what they do when they reach a site. You’re sort of triaging urgent need versus what can wait. And I think kids who have lost a parent to these kinds of tragedies are kind of your first-order triage event. Honestly, being involved, even though you might hear more of the grief, actually, I think is a salve in some respects to the pain of it. Action is sort of the antidote to that feeling of helplessness and anxiety.

Does that sense of triage extend to today’s troubled world? Do you feel like you have to keep adding issues to work on?

In general, there’s sort of the quiet activism of living pleasantly. I mean you go about your day and try and be the best neighbor and citizen and individual that you can be out there. The causes I have sort of came about organically. And I want to make sure that when I get involved with something that I do it thoroughly — that it’s not charity tourism. I want it to be something that I can fully involve myself in and that what I can offer is something that they can use.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.