The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

by Jim DeFede

Canadian Tire donated sleeping bags, air mattresses, blankets, and bottles of water. One of the first things it donated, though, were toys. One of the firefighters in town realized there were a lot of kids among the passengers and wanted to give each of them a small toy to play with when they came off the plane. He contacted O’Donnell and Susanne Gillingham, the store manager, to see if they could help. Logistically, it would have been difficult to hand the toys out at the airport, so they worked out a plan to have the toys delivered to the various shelters. Canadian Tire sells toys only during Christmas, so its stock in Gander was fairly limited in early September. O’Donnell discovered, however, a warehouse full of toys in Grand Falls. When she explained the situation, the fire department lent her a truck and a driver, and off they went. O’Donnell had one rule for the toys: nothing violent. No war toys. No guns. Not now, not with everything that had happened on September 11. Instead, O’Donnell loaded up on dolls and stuffed animals and board games and trucks and race cars. She even managed to find a few handheld computer games. She made sure that every toy that needed batteries had them. They filled up the back of the fire truck and raced home to Gander. The fire truck went from shelter to shelter, handing out toys to kids who would come running to greet them. Each day it made a loop of the shelters to make sure none of the kids was missed. Members of Gander’s volunteer f...