Many at UF pay tribute to 9/11 by doing a good deed - Gainesville Sun

<p>Alexis Winer, a University of Florida freshman accounting major from Miami, was sitting in her first-grade classroom when terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan in 2001.</p><p>“They turned on the TVs as soon as the second plane flew into the building,” Winer said. “I had no idea what the World Trade Center was but everyone was crying.”</p><p>Her friend, Ariel Weltz, a freshman business major also from Miami, said she remembered being scared.</p><p>The tragedy serves as a “reality check” for Americans, Winer said. They both said it's important to commemorate the anniversary for the 3,000 who died that day, and to honor all the people who risked their lives at Ground Zero to aid the survivors and clean up in the aftermath.</p><p>On Wednesday, Winer filled out a card promising to do something nice for someone else in memory of 9/11 as part of a “Good Deed Mitzvah Marathon” sponsored by the Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student Center. Her good deed: to call her grandparents in Bogota more often. “You never know when you're not going to be able to call them,” she said.</p><p>The Good Deed Marathon has been an annual event at UF since 2002, said Aaron Notik, the associate rabbi and program director at the Jewish Student Center, as a way to counteract the dark, terrible deed that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.</p><p>“In the Jewish tradition, the best way to combat that is with light and good deeds,” Notik said.</p><p>Their goal is to get 1,000 students to commit themselves to doing a good deed, he said -- a thousand points of light pushing back against the darkness.</p><p>Calling grandparents or parents was a popular mitzvah, he said. Other students said they would hug a Marine, cook for friends, feed the homeless and visit people in the hospital.</p><p>By noon, Notik said, they were making pretty good progress but still had a long way to go toward the goal.</p><p>“Thank God there is enough and God willing there will be more (good deeds),” said David Portnow, a junior in neuroscience and Jewish studies.</p><p>Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun of North Miami Beach said he'd been invited to UF to talk to students about his experiences as a volunteer at Ground Zero immediately after the attacks. A community liaison at the time, Kaploun said he was riding in a car heading downtown on FDR Drive when the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.</p><p>At one point, they had to get out of the car and walk a half-mile to the World Trade Center, ash and debris floating down on them. When it appeared the Twin Towers were about to collapse, Kaploun said, they were ordered to run and made it to Battery Park City at the southern tip of Manhattan.</p><p>Kaploun would spend the next 48 hours helping evacuate people. He donated the shirt he wore that day to authorities in the hopes that it would help them get a better understanding of the toxic chemicals that contaminated the lungs of first responders -- some of whom have since died of mesothelioma and other diseases.</p><p>Kaploun considers himself one of the lucky ones. One friend of his who volunteered that day died during Rosh Hashanah last year, he said. Another friend died in the WTC because he wouldn't leave behind a friend in a wheelchair.</p><p>Because of his experience, Kaploun said he is shocked at the lack of knowledge and indifference some students seem to express. On the other hand, he said, he's encouraged by those who stop to give the time to commit themselves to doing a good deed in honor of those 9/11 heroes who have died.</p><p>““I am in awe of all the heroes of that day,” Kaploun said. “Every one of those people is a complete world, an unfulfilled potential.”</p>