No matter where you were or what you were doing, you remember 9/11 in detail…the feelings of fear, apprehension, and vulner- ability. Shirley Brooks-Jones was on a plane diverted to Gander, Newfoundland where she and the passengers of 38 jumbo jets waited up to six days to return home.
During those frightening days, Shirley and her fellow travelers were recipients of what she calls “the most incredible humanitarian acts we have ever experienced or are likely to experience again.” The residents of Central Newfoundland were kind, gentle people who shut down their towns and their lives to take care of the “plane people” as they became known. They provided Shirley with food, shelter, TV to follow the news, a phone to communicate with family & friends back home, and a sense of home so far from where she really wanted to be.
Shirley and her friends tried to pay the
hosts for services & help rendered but they wouldn’t hear of it. So on the long-awaited flight home, Shirley took action. She built up enough courage to ask the flight crew to use the PA to make a plea to her fellow passen- gers…would they all pledge funds to assist in establishing an endowed scholarship fund for the young people, the students, of Central Newfoundland– so that their gratitude would live on in perpetuity.
When the flight landed in Atlanta where all the passengers would scatter far & wide, Shirley had helped raise over $15,000! And she’s made it her focus of responsibility ever since to con- tinue to raise money for those kids…personally delivering the news each and every year to her new-found family in Newfoundland…and spend- ing 9/11 there each year too.
Shirley says that on September 14, 2001 she learned a great deal about herself and confirmed the truth of what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote so long ago: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” No one who knew Shirley growing up as the oldest of nine would have guessed the path that Shirley has taken. She was extremely shy with little self- confidence, legally blind (without glasses), and scared to death when she entered the workforce.
Shirley wishes that one day it will be possible for politics and religion to no longer come between people of our world, that we could sit down, get to know each other, and discuss our differences without rancor, that we could celebrate our differences and become friends who truly care about all humankind.
That’s what the 20 Outstanding Women do every day…let’s continue to spread that light.
To find out more about the Lewisporte Flight 15 Scholarship, contact The Columbus Foundation at www.ColumbusFoundation.org.