During our second phone interview for our pitch to the wonderful Kevin Tuerff, we spoke to “Mac,” a citizen of Gander. Mac is the director of the Gander campus of the North Atlantic College, the place where hundreds of people stayed and thousands were fed during the week after 9/11.

“Every religion in the world has a ‘do unto others’ piece,” he says, “never in my wildest dreams did we think we’d be doing it on this scale!” After the twin towers went down in New York City, the people of Gander were notified that USA airspace was closed and every plane that was supposed to land in JFK was going to land there-in two hours. “The mayor declared a state of emergency,” he recalls “and we started setting up the school as best we could with the time we had.” For Mac and his team, “setting up” meant clearing every desk and chair out of the classrooms of the college and gathering cots, food, medication, and heaps of other supplies to aid the 7,000 people that would soon be arriving. “We didn’t really have a choice but to have 7,000 move in with us” he laughs. Although the circumstances were tough, attitudes were not an issue for the folks staying in Gander. “We never had a single complaint about the food, sleeping areas, or anything like that” he says, “no one thought they were above anyone else. It was really sort of special.”

After all of this, did the people of Gander ask for anything in return? “People kept asking us how they could repay us, and we told them ‘next time you have the chance to make life better for someone along their way, do it.”

Although the people of Gander didn’t ask for anything in return, the people that stayed with them rallied together and put all the money they had into a cardboard box, and even continued mailing in donations after they went home.

“That cardboard box created a scholarship that lasted 16 years,” he muses. What a way to pay it forward.

Caden Bohn

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