The students and faculty of Poly Prep Country Day School, a Brooklyn private school, will gather today for a memorial service in the garden the students created a few weeks after September 11, 2001.

The garden was planted in memory of the 10 alumni who died that day. It is a refuge for friends and family of the victims, as well as for current students.

At the service, the school’s a capella group will perform a song written by a Poly student as part of a musical, “Out of Ashes,” which he wrote in response to the terrorist attacks.

“It’s a very important event for us as a school,” the head of the Upper School history department, Louise Forsyth, said. “What’s remarkable is that the students are absolutely respectful and perfectly well behaved. It’s miraculous. There is a sense of deep respect.”

Some of the students who feel most connected to the lives they honor this morning are those who have scholarships named after the victims. The school established the September 11 Memorial Scholarship Fund in the fall of 2001.

A sixth grader from the Rockaways, Charlotte Werner, has the Joseph Mascali scholarship, which made it possible for her to attend the school in the footsteps of three older siblings, Annie, Sarah, and Justin. “When I was told I received this scholarship I cried. I was crying with happiness for being able to attend Poly, and also with sorrow,” Miss Werner said.

At the time, Joe Mascali’s name was already familiar to her, because she’d heard about him from his brother Arnold Mascali, also a Poly alumnus, at a school fund-raising event. Arnold told her that Joe was a firefighter like her own father.

Last week, it was Miss Werner’s turn to tell people about Joe at the school’s first fund-raising event for the scholarship fund.

“Over the years I have gotten to know Joe. I call him Joe now because we know each other really well,” she said to an audience of 500 people at Cipriani 42nd Street. “I especially talk to him a lot during tests at school, when I am sad and when I am happy. I am a little nervous now, and he is right here. He is always with me. He and my dear grandpa are remembered in my nightly prayers.”

The event sparkled with celebrity, thanks to several generous parents of Poly students. Art Garfunkel, whose son, James, is in the class of 2009, performed “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” James also performed, sounding and looking much like his father but with a more flamboyant fashion sense: The father wore a dark suit, while the son wore a silver sequined jacket and pink dress shirt.

Meryl Streep, a parent of an alumnus and a current student, said in a pre-recorded video, “I think it is kind of perfect that the school set up this fund, because it was the dark of ignorance and veil of misunderstanding and fear that made the towers fall, and only rigorous education can prevent it from happening again.”

Actor Steve Schirripa, whose daughter Bria is in the class of 2010, brought along several of his cast members in “The Sopranos,” including James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, and Lorraine Bracco.

“See you all in March,” Mr. Schirripa said, referring to when the next season of the show starts. “No, I’m not dead yet! If they knock me, I won’t be able to afford Poly tuition for my kid.”

Governor Pataki — not a parent, but a fan of Poly nevertheless — also made remarks. “When I think of Poly Prep, I think Brooklyn. And I think of excellence and tolerance,” he said.

Poly’s class of 1995 was well represented at the event in honor of the two classmates who died at the World Trade Center, Joseph Della Pietra and Terrence Gazzani. “They were two incredible personalities, larger than life, with big hearts. It’s tough to sum up,” Anthony Tortora said. “We all grew up together. They’re a part of me and a part of everyone that’s here.”

Mary Hasson, the widow of Poly alumnus Joseph Hasson, reminisced about her husband with one of his close Poly friends, Douglas Jabara. The headmaster of the school, David Harman, used his time at the podium mainly to thank those who had helped put together the event. He gave a big Tiffany box to Lisa Della Pietra, an alumna whose brother Joseph was killed. After September 11, she left her job in finance and started volunteering at Poly to help build the scholarship fund. Now she is the school’s director of alumni relations.