9/11 Orphan Returns Kindness to Friendship Circle

Alec Russin turns 13 next month, and as is customary with a bar mitzvah community service project, Russin donated his time to an organization, in this case one that helps special-needs children. However, Russin’s involvement with The Friendship Circle, based out of Livingston, NJ, was deeply personal.

The Friendship Circle helped him, his twin sisters, Ariella and Olivia, both 11, and their mother, Andrea Russin, grapple with the murder of his father, Steven Russin, who was killed during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York City.

Steven Russin worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center.

The family was living in Randolph at the time and was contacted by The Friendship Circle, which over the next six years provided visits from teenagers to the home to look after the young children and to give Andrea a break.

“It just gives you time to do anything,” Andrea Russin said. “When your life is not normal, it’s even more important.”

This meant that teenage girls would arrive at the Russin household and play with the children, cook with them, read to them and be a part of their lives. The parents stay in the household and are able to focus on bills that need paying or phone calls that need to be made, for example.

Typically The Friendship Circle helps children with individual special needs; however, “we as a family had a special need,” Russin said, and that’s why the charity contacted her.

“So they sent girls to my house for years, and it really gave the children something to look forward to every day, and it gave me time every week to have time for other things,” she said.

Russin was quick to point out that many organizations helped her family, too, such as Catholic Charities and other religious and volunteer groups.

She said Alec picked The Friendship Circle as a bar mitzvah project to help the brothers and sisters of the special-needs children that the charity normally helps.

The special-needs children and their siblings met at the Aidekman Jewish Community Campus in Whippany each morning from Monday through today for an end-of-summer camp.

From the center, the special-needs kids will go as a group to an activity while the siblings will go with Alec, his mother and adult volunteers to another one, like an outdoor amusement park or the New York Hall of Science.

“After all they’ve done for me, and that now that I had to do something for the community … this was the perfect opportunity to do it,” Alec Russin said.

Andrea Russin, a real estate manager, moved out of Randolph eight years ago and still lives in New Jersey.

She declined to identify the town to be able to give her children the sense of anonymity and privacy that the family did not have in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We have a happy life,” Russin said. “We have gotten to the point where everyone is leading wonderful lives. The kids are doing great. They’re doing well in school.”

At the same time, Russin said the memory of what her family endured never completely goes away. There are days of waking up and feeling happy only to experience a sense of sadness. The kids are reminded of it every day.

“It’s not a normal life,” Andrea Russin said. “But it’s a good life.”