The Lesson of Gander.

I can't believe it's been nearly 25 years. 

7,000 people step off diverted planes into a town they’ve never heard of, carrying fear, exhaustion, and the sickening uncertainty of 9/11. Gander, Newfoundland a place of moose, cold weather, and a quiet airport suddenly becomes the safest spot in the world, not because it has more resources, but because it chooses to treat strangers like neighbors.

We walk through how 38 flights end up on this tiny corner of North America, what it feels like to sit on a plane for hours without answers, and why the mix of passengers matters. Families, solo travelers, newly adoptive parents, and people from at least 95 countries are all stranded together, including Muslim passengers who have reason to fear being targeted. What follows is a breathtaking example of community kindness: shelters opened in schools and arenas, prescriptions filled for free, public phones set up as lifelines, and private homes offered for showers, beds, and meals.

Then we zoom in on the small moments that define the larger story: kids helping clean bathrooms for strangers, a local “screech-in” ceremony that says “you belong here,” and a town that offers welcome without keeping score. We also track the long tail of generosity, from returning visits to a scholarship fund that grows past $1 million, and we ask the question that won’t let go: what if we didn’t wait for disaster to let goodness rise?

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Intro music: ‘Human First’ by Mike Baker – YouTube Music: https://youtu.be/wRXqkYVarGA | Podcast: Still Here, Still Trying | Website: www.mikebakerhq.com

Transcript

Why Kindness Still Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Kindness Matters Podcast, a space for stories that inspire, challenge, and bring us a little closer together. If you've been looking for a reminder of the good in people, you're in the right place. Because kindness matters, and so do you. Welcome back to the Kindness Matters Podcast, the show that believes the most powerful force in the world isn't money, it isn't technology, and it certainly isn't political power. It's human kindness. I'm so glad you're here today because the story I'm about to share with you is one of my absolute favorites. It's a story I come back to again and again, especially on those days when the news makes me want to turn everything off and hide under a blanket.

Gander And The Planes Diverted

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Today we're going to a small town in Canada. A place most of you probably never thought about. A place called Gander, Newfoundland. Population? Just under 10,000 people. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Gander was just a quiet, cold, utterly ordinary town on the northeastern tip of North America. A place known mainly for its airport and for moose. And then the world literally dropped out of the sky. By the time that day was over, nearly 7,000 strangers had landed in Gander. Their planes had been diverted from the skies over America. They came from dozens of countries, they spoke dozens of languages. They didn't know where they were, they didn't know what happened. They were frightened, exhausted, and completely, utterly dependent on the good will of strangers. And what those strangers did next is the reason we're here today.

Who Was On Those Flights

SPEAKER_00 2:08

To understand what happened in Gander, we we first have to go back to the morning of september eleventh, two thousand one. You know what happened. In New York and Washington, the towers fell. Nearly three thousand people lost their lives. The United States shut down its entire airspace. Something that had never happened before in American history. At that moment, hundreds of transatlantic flights, planes that had taken off from London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Nairobi, and dozens of other cities were somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, headed for the United States, and suddenly there was nowhere for them to go. Air traffic controllers had to make fast decisions. Thirty-eight of those planes were directed to Gander International Airport. Thirty-eight planes. In a town of ten thousand people. Now, here's something beautiful about Gander that most people don't know. That airport? It used to be one of the most important airports in the world. In the days before jets could cross the Atlantic in one stretch, every transatlantic flight had to stop in Gander to refuel. This tiny Canadian town was literally a gateway between continents. Fidel Castro himself once went to boggaining there. Gander had welcomed the world before. It just didn't know it was about to do it again. The first planes began touching down around noon. One by one, 38 aircraft taxied to the terminal, and then they sat. For hours the passengers couldn't get off. Security officials had to determine whether any of these planes carried a threat. The people inside had no idea what was happening in the world. Some of them were watching movies, others were sleeping. Then the pilot's voice came over the intercom, and everything changed. Imagine being passenger Jacqueline Pinto flying home to New York after a vacation in Italy. She heard the pilot announce a delay. She had no idea that when her plane finally stopped, she would be more than a thousand miles from her home in a town she'd never heard of, with the world on fire behind her. Let's talk for a moment about who was on those thirty eight planes because this matters. They weren't a homogeneous group. They came from at least ninety-five different countries, business executives and backpackers, families and solo travelers, people flying first class, and the people in the last row of coach. There were Americans coming home, and Europeans visiting for the first time. There were people from the Middle East, from Asia, from Africa, from South America. There was Roxanne Loper and her husband Clark, an American couple who had just completed the adoption of a two-year-old little girl named Alexandra from Kajakhstan. They were on their way home to start their new life as a family of three. Instead, they found themselves stranded, exhausted with a toddler who had just been uprooted from everything she knew. There were passengers who had loved ones in New York and Washington, and no way to reach them. Parents of children they couldn't call, spouses who didn't know if their partner had been in one of those towers. The fear on those planes was immeasurable. There were people of every faith, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists. And yes, some of the passengers were Muslim. In the hours after the attacks, as the world began to learn who had carried them out, those passengers faced a fear that was entirely their own. The fear of being targeted by their fellow passengers. The fear of being seen as the enemy. That detail matters because what happened next in Gander didn't apply only to the people who looked American, it applied to everyone. Every single soul on those planes.

A Town Mobilizes Without Hesitation

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Now put yourself in the shoes of the people of Gander for a moment. It's a Tuesday morning. You're going about your life, maybe dropping the kids at school, maybe heading to work. And then the news comes on. The United States is under attack. Towers are falling. The world is in chaos. And then your phone rings, or your neighbor comes to the door and says, 38 planes just landed at the airport. There are almost 7,000 people who need help. What do you do? The people of Gander didn't hesitate. Not for one second. The local television station put out a simple message. Lend a hand, do what you can. And that was enough. Within hours, the community center was opened as a shelter. Then the schools, then the hockey arena. The ice rink at the Gander Community Center was turned into, and I love this detail, what Mayor Claude Elliot described as the largest walk-in freezer in the country, packed floor to ceiling with donated food. Pharmacies in town filled prescriptions for free, for strangers, without being asked. People needed insulin, heart medication, asthma inhalers, and they got them. No questions, no charge. Banks of public telephones were set up so the plane people, that's what the locals came to call them, affectionately, could call their families. At the time when cell phones weren't universal and international calling was very expensive, Gander made sure no one was left without a lifeline. Locals showed up at the Lions Club, the Legion Hall, and the community centers and said, Hey, who needs a shower? Come over to my place. They were inviting complete strangers, people from anywhere and everywhere on earth into their private homes to bathe, to sleep, to eat. And the people came. Bruce McLeod was one of those gander residents. He opened his home to Roxanne and Clark Loper. And little Alexandra, that two-year-old girl from Kazakhstan who'd just been adopted, now stranded in yet another strange land. Bruce and his wife Susan took them in, fed them, gave them a bed, and made them feel safe. People were in need, Bruce said later, and we were the ones to provide it. Roxanne said simply, They were family immediately. Think about that. Family immediately with complete strangers. The local constable, a man named Oz Fudge, was one of the first on the scene. He spent days greeting passengers, reassuring them, guiding them. If you got to see what I saw, he said later, you'd have seen people coming up to passengers, locals, and giving them that hug and telling them, You've got nothing to worry about. You're here in Newfoundland, and we've got you. They organized tours of the town for people who were going stir crazy from waiting. They hosted concerts by local musicians. They introduced their guests to the local cuisine, including stewed moose, which I imagine was a first for most of those international travelers. They set up bowling nights, they arranged bus trips to see the local scenery. In the middle of a global catastrophe, the people of Gander were trying to make sure their guests could find a moment of joy. And when the children were frightened, because there were children on those planes, scared and confused, a local woman's daughter put on the full costume of Commander Gander, the local town mascot, and walked through the shelters making kids laugh. Because of course she did.

Small Acts That Define Welcome

SPEAKER_00 11:50

I want to pause here and share a few specific moments that I think capture the spirit of what happened in Gander. The small, quiet acts that don't make headlines but say everything about who the people really are. There was a little girl named Charlotte Gush, eight years old at the time, a third grader. Her mother started baking tea buns to bring to the stranded passengers. Charlotte helped. She went with her mom to her school where 770 passengers were sleeping on the gymnasium floor, and she watched these grown adults see the news on the TV screens that had been set up for them. Watched the horror register on their faces as they understood finally what had happened. Charlotte baked and brought warmth. She said in interviews since that she believes that experience is why she owns her own bakery today. There was Constable Fudge, walking his feet, watching kids help their parents carry food and clean sheets and toothbrushes to the shelters, kids on their day off from school cleaning bathrooms for strangers because their parents asked them to. It just warms the cockles of my heart, he said. There was the moment in the local Legion Hall where Beulu Car Cooper organized what's called a screech-in ceremony. It's a beloved Newfoundland tradition, where outsiders are welcomed into the community as quote honorary Newfoundlanders. Stranded passengers from Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Brazil, people who couldn't have found Newfoundland on a map three days earlier, stood in that hall and were told, You belong here now. You are one of us. And there was this beautiful, complicated truth underneath all of it. The people of Gander weren't treating their guests like a charity project. They were treating them like neighbors, like equals. There's a difference. Help implies a gap between the helper and the helped. Welcome says there is no gap. You are here. And that is enough.

Goodbyes, Bonds, And Returning Home

SPEAKER_00 14:28

On September thirteenth, 2001, American Airspace reopened. One by one, the thirty-eight planes began to leave. And something remarkable happened. The passengers didn't want to go. We really were having a great time with those Newfoundlanders, one passenger said. Others wept. They exchanged phone numbers and addresses with their hosts. They hugged strangers who had become friends. They promised to come back. And many of them kept that promise. Passengers created websites dedicated to their individual flights, sharing stories and staying connected with each other and with the locals who had cared for them. They traveled back to Gander for anniversaries of the attacks. Some of them have returned every single year. Perhaps the most enduring legacy, the one that makes me tear up every single time I think about it, is the scholarship fund. On one of the diverted flights, a woman named Shirley Brooks Jones had an idea. The people of this small town had put their lives on hold to take care of thousands of strangers. What could the passengers do to say thank you? She suggested creating a scholarship fund for local students. Floodsheets went through that plane, she said, like crazy. They raised over $15,000 before they'd even landed back home. That was in 2001. Today, more than 20 years later, that fund has grown to over $1 million and has sent more than 200 Gander area students to college. And Lufthansa Airlines, the German carrier, named one of their new Airbus planes, the Gander Halifax, in honor of the Canadian towns that had welcomed their passengers. It was the first Lufthansa plane ever named after a city that wasn't in Germany. Even a 13-year-old boy in California named Mason, who saw the Broadway musical inspired by this story, come from away, was so moved that he asked his friends and family to donate to the Gander SPCA and a scholarship fund instead of buying him birthday presents. Imagine, he said, 7,000 people coming up to your doorstep and you just be kind. Yes, Mason, exactly.

The Legacy That Kept Growing

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I want to stay in that feeling for a moment. But I also want to be honest with you because this podcast isn't about just celebrating beautiful stories, it's about using them to learn something. Because here's the truth. In the twenty plus years since September eleventh, two thousand one, we have watched the world move in a very different direction from Gander. We have watched nations close their borders to refugees, fleeing violence. People who are in every meaningful sense just like those passengers on those planes. Frightened, displaced, dependent on the good will of strangers. We have watched neighbors call the police on neighbors because they looked different, prayed differently, spoke a different language. We've watched political leaders rise to power by convincing people that strangers are dangerous, that the unknown is a threat, that the correct response to someone who is different from you is suspicion, not welcome. We've watched online spaces become arenas of cruelty, where people say things to each other that they would never say face to face, where division is the algorithm's favorite product, because outrage keeps us clicking. We've watched communities fracture along lines of race, religion, politics, and class, and watch those fractures get wider with every news cycle. And I think about Gander. I think about Mayor Claude Elliot, who said we saw people from ninety five countries that needed help, and we poured out love and compassion for complete strangers, because that's what we would want if we were stranded in their place. I think about Janice Goody, the local newspaper reporter who said for us it was just every day. You don't turn your packs on people in need. Just every day. Not heroic, not exceptional, not political, just what you do. And I think about what made Gander capable of that response. It wasn't that they had more resources, it wasn't that they had more time, they had less of both. A small town, a sudden crisis, no warning, and no plan. What they had was a culture of looking at strangers and seeing people first. So what is the lesson here?

The Lesson And The Kindness Challenge

SPEAKER_00 20:01

What do we take away from this extraordinary little ordinary town? I think the lesson is this. Kindness is not naive. It is the most sophisticated, courageous and practical response to a world in crisis that we possess. The people of Gander didn't look at those planes and ask who deserves our help? They didn't sort the passengers by nationality or religion or politics or what they looked like. They looked at seven thousand human beings who needed something, and they said We have it. Come in. And yes, there were Muslim passengers on those planes in the hours after an attack carried out in the name of Islam. And the people of Gander welcomed them too. There were no recorded incidents of hostility, no documented moments of finger pointing or blame. Because in Gander, the person in front of you was a person full stop. There is a monument in the small town of Appleton, just outside of Gander, built with five thousand dollars donated by stranded passengers. At its center is a piece of steel from the World Trade Center. The monument is dedicated to the first responders who ran towards the towers, and to the residents of Newfoundland, who ran toward the plains. The mayor of Appleton, Durm Flynn, said something in twenty seventeen that I want to leave you with. He said there is goodness in the world that floats to the top in times of disaster. Floats to the top He's right. But here's my question, and I want you to sit with this. What if we didn't wait for disaster? What if the goodness is just there all the time? What if we just chose it? The world came to Gander on september eleventh, two thousand one, and Gander said yes. In a week when the world was at its worst, one small town was at its absolute best. Not because they were special, but because they decided to be kind. Because they looked at strangers and chose to see family. The plain people, those 7,000 travelers from ninety-five countries, didn't forget. They sent money, they sent letters, they came back. Some of them have been back every single year. Because when someone truly welcomes you, it changes you. It stays with you. It becomes a part of your story. And now it's a part of ours, too. Here's your kindness challenge for this week. Inspired by the people of Gander. Find one person who feels like a stranger to you in your neighborhood, your workplace, your community, and instead of looking past them, look at them. Say hello. Ask their name. Let them know they're seen. You don't have to feed 7,000 people. You just have to open your door. Even a little to one. That's how it starts. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. Uh, if this story moved you, and I hope it did, please share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that humanity, at its core, is still capable of extraordinary things. This episode was made possible by the support of amazing people like Toothiax John Tablet and Dave Lewis.