Since the attack on the World Trade Center, people from across the country and around the world had offered their love, their money, their ingenuity, their blood and their bravery. Thank God for the folks from Alabama, though: New York had been reeling so badly that no one had even thought to ask for a marching band.
“We really didn’t know how we would be received,” says Dr. Anthony Paul, who leads the band as part of a youth organization called the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation. “But the minute we stepped out of the van and started playing ‘America the Beautiful,’ people started clapping and getting out of cars. Policemen started saluting, and we started a procession. We went to St. Vincent’s and played hymns for people mourning. And then someone directed us to Washington Square Park. There were about 2,000 folks there, and the crowd parted for us and we started playing ‘Amazing Grace,’ and people started crying. Then people directed us to Union Square. We marched for eight hours without food, only water. Then, on Sunday morning, we marched from one fire station to another. As we approached fire stations, the firemen had gotten word we were coming from the previous fire station, and they would be out to greet us. Every place we went it repeated itself: crying, clapping, lots of hugs. We told them we love them and we feel their pain–and, though we’re from Alabama, we’re all one.” What follow are more snapshots of the kindness of strangers.
By late September, the United Way of New York City had raised $110 million for its September 11th Fund. The Red Cross had raised $190 million; eBay had launched Auction for America, hoping to raise $100 million in 100 days by urging traders to donate the proceeds from certain items. Amber Moydell, an 8-year-old from Spring, Texas, is selling drawings and virtual cups of Kool-Aid on eBay with some help from her mother. “She expressed a lot of emotion and concern,” says Amber’s mom, Michael. “I said, ‘Would you like to help? Do you want to sell some of your toys on eBay?’ And she said, ‘I draw really good, Mommy’.”
Prisoners throughout California’s penal system have asked if they can raise relief funds for firefighters–and police officers. “Which I thought was interesting,” says Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Corrections.
At the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco, hundreds, including Robin Williams, waited up to five hours to give blood, even after officials begged them to come back in a few weeks. Ben Yerushalmi was waiting for word about a friend who was missing in New York. “I’d keep giving blood if I had enough,” he said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
The Welch sisters of Annandale, Va., are 16 (Ashley), 15 (Aubrey), 14 (Alana) and 10 (Alyssa). Their father, Lt. Col. Tracy Welch, works at the Pentagon and would have been in harm’s way on Sept. 11 had his office not been moved for renovations. “I called my mom in tears, and she said, ‘Your dad is OK’,” says Aubrey. The girls quickly rallied their friends and neighbors–as well as fellow members of the church choir and Aubrey’s cheerleading squad–for a series of carwashes that raised $10,000 for the Red Cross. The Welches have since organized a national carwash campaign called Wash America, which can be found at washamerica.org.
The worst of the wounded at the Pentagon crash site were burn victims, many of whom desperately needed skin grafts. Since all airplanes were grounded, Matthew Harris and Eddie Perryman, twentysomethings who recover and process human tissue for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, volunteered to drive 70 square feet of skin to Washington, D.C., in three huge Styrofoam coolers. “We jumped at the opportunity,” says Harris. They had no time to change, so they scrambled into a van wearing scrubs, carrying Tootsie Rolls, peppermints, sodas and directions downloaded off the Internet.
More than 50,000 people have written letters of condolence to the American Embassy in London, and upwards of 1,100 have offered to give stranded Americans a place to stay. After a special service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Prince Charles spoke with some of the Americans in the enormous crowd outside, including a retired Florida psychologist named Peter Morris. “He said to me, ‘We are so sorry. We are with you in spirit. You may not feel it, but we care. We just wish we could do more’.” Prime Minister Tony Blair also paused as he headed down the steps, telling Morris, “We will stand by you.” Days later, at a prayer service at St. Thomas Church in New York, British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer read a message from Queen Elizabeth, which ended, “Nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love.”
The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Cesar Maia, has ordered up 150 billboards to be spread throughout the city: a photo-montage showing Rio’s famous statue of Christ embracing the Manhattan skyline.
As night fell in Moscow on Sept. 11, just after the Twin Towers had collapsed, a small group of Russian Orthodox priests held a service, on their knees, in front of the gates of the U.S. Embassy. In the past, the gates had been the site of rallies, egg-throwing and paint-splattering. Now flowers fill the entire block.
At Boston’s Fenway Park, where antipathy to the Big Apple runs famously deep, fans sang “New York, New York” during a break in the Red Sox game. The next day, The Boston Globe ran a photograph of a young boy wearing a Red Sox cap and holding a red, white and blue sign that would have caused a riot a week earlier: GOD BLESS THE YANKEES AND NEW YORK.
Eva Kinsey Scala and her husband, Ray, own a tiny restaurant on Pine Island, in Florida. For 20 years, fishermen who have had a lucky haul–and copycat tourists–have been pinning dollar bills to the walls. The Scalas estimate that they’ve got $10,000 worth of wallpaper. Now they’re taking it all down and donating it to victims’ families.
Lt. Thomas F. Kenney of the Hyannis Fire Department in Massachusetts left for New York on the evening of Sept. 11, a volunteer squad leader for a federal search-and-rescue team. Kenney and his eight-man team recovered the bodies of some fallen police officers. But no survivors. “Guys we know were in that collapse,” he says. “That made it all the more difficult.” After a week spent pulling 12-hour shifts at Ground Zero, Kenney and his team returned home. His house had been decorated by his wife and neighbors. There was a 12-foot sign that read welcome home, Tommy hanging on the garage door. Kenney cried when he saw his family. “We were glad to do our little part,” he says. “We’re damn sorry we had to.”
Jenna, who is 11 and lives in Massachusetts, has baked 1,466 cookies since the attack, handing them out to local firefighters, state troopers and neighbors. “It’s a way to help what happened in New York,” she says, “because the smells and tastes remind us of a time when we felt safe. I’m going to make more this weekend.”
