Students Pledge Good Deeds in Honor of 9/11 Victims

Assistant Rabbi Aaron Notik asked University of Florida students walking through Turlington Plaza to stop at a booth. “I can’t right this second,” one student said. “I have to go to class.”

“People are busy today,” he said before trying to stop another student.

Notik and others asked students on Monday to stop and to commit to doing a good deed in the memory of a victim of 9/11.

It was part of the annual “Good Deed Mitzvah Marathon,” which has been hosted by the Jewish student center every year since 2005. Students and community members were encouraged to write down a good deed they did or would do that day. Their deed was then attached to a photo of a victim on a display, complete with miniature replicas of the Twin Towers.

Thomas Spoto pledged to invite a friend to dinner in the memory of Deborah H. Kaplan, 45, who worked for the state port authority. Travis Spaulding committed to praying for the family of Brooke Alexandra Jackman, a 23-year-old assistant trader who worked on the 104th floor of Tower 1.

Rabbi Berl Goldman said the center hoped to have 1,000 people vow to do a good deed.

“We have a real responsibility as mankind to respond to hate with good deeds,” he said.

Ryan Beilstein, a 21-year-old political science student, vowed he would raise awareness. Beilstein is a member of the university’s ROTC program.

“I think 10 years have gone by and people tend to forget,” he said. “Most people don’t know what we’re fighting for.”

Notik said even just thinking about making a good deed would help the world.

“We’re taught a small portion of light dispels darkness,” he said.

Christian Chessman, a 19-year-old philosophy and political science major, said the victims worked for corporations that were complicit in oppression abroad.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t mourn the loss of life,” he said. “The loss of life was idiotic and stupid.”

Greg Gilbert, a 21-year-old geomatics major, said he would volunteer to help someone succeed in the name of Arkady Zaltsman, an architect for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at the World Trade Center.

“I love helping people,” Gilbert said. “It’s great to know you helped better someone’s day.”

Not everyone volunteered to do a good deed, but Notik said he believes those who did will fulfill their promise.

“I believe that when they take the time to write it down, they’ll go ahead and do that deed,” he said. “A person, after seeing the photograph of a victim, will actually have that push and motivation to do the good deed.”

As students rushed by, Goldman shrugged and ushered those who stopped to the booth.

“We’ve got to stop sometime, you know?” he said.