Jon Stewart maintains that he never consciously resolved to direct his philanthropic endeavours toward first responders and their families; it simply transpired that way.

The award-winning host of “The Daily Show” professed his aspiration to feel of use and to lend his support to those who had consecrated their lives to the service of others.

"These aren't the X-Men," Stewart said.

"They're not superheroes.

They're merely men and women who 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 advocacy on behalf of the first responders to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks culminated in irate lobbying and Congressional testimony in 2019, whereby he sought to guarantee that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund would not be depleted.

He strove to close a loophole in the PACT Act that had left U.S. troops exposed to radiation during the Afghanistan War bereft of medical coverage.

And his efforts persist, as he announced Friday that he would reprise his role as host of the First Responders Children’s Foundation’s Roll Call of Heroes ceremony in New York’s Times Square on Oct. 28, in commemoration of National First Responders Day.

“One is afforded the opportunity to stand face to face with the very individuals being honored—to proffer them an ‘attaboy,’ as it were—and to encounter genuinely young people deeply engaged in their communities,” he said.

“It is invariably gratifying to be able, in some measure, to touch the firmament of what holds this all together.”

Jillian Crane, President and CEO of the First Responders Children’s Foundation, remarked that the nonprofit is elated that Stewart will reprise his role as host of this year’s event.

“His unwavering advocacy on behalf of first responders—particularly those contending with illnesses stemming from 9/11—renders him the ideal host for this annual gathering,” she said.

“As the sole national nonprofit devoted to the children of first responders, we hold that casting a spotlight upon their parents—heroes who serve our communities day in and day out—constitutes a potent means of expressing our gratitude.”

This interview has been redacted and abridged in the interest of lucidity.

If we prove incapable of tending to those who tend to us, it lays bare a profound, structural defect in the very scaffolding upon which one constructs a society.

Evidently, having lived through the aftermath of 9/11, one apprehends just how precarious the experiment is absent those willing to run towards the collapse.

I think that, conjoined with the outrage at a political system that was all too eager to extol them when they were needed and all too eager to cast them aside once they no longer occupied the foreground—I think that generated the momentum.

It is analogous to the protocol they observe upon arriving at a site: one is, in effect, triaging urgent exigency against what may be deferred.

And I would contend that children who have lost a parent to tragedies of this order constitute, as it were, a first-order triage event.

In all candour, to be involved—even though one may be exposed to a greater measure of the grief—is, I think, in certain respects a salve for the anguish of it.

Action is, in a sense, the antidote to that sensation of helplessness and anxiety.

Broadly speaking, there exists a species of quiet activism inherent in living agreeably.

That is to say, one proceeds through one's day endeavouring to be the finest neighbour, citizen, and individual one can possibly be.

The causes to which I have devoted myself emerged, in a sense, organically.

Moreover, I am adamant that any undertaking I commit to be pursued with rigour—that it never amount to mere charity tourism.

I want it to be something into which I can immerse myself wholly, and wherein what I have to offer is of genuine utility to those concerned.