Thousands Mark Sept. 11 on North American Campuses by Pledging Good Deeds

(Chabad.edu) Chabad Houses serving dozens of campuses across North America marked the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by getting students to commit additional acts of kindness. Organizers of the events, some of which took in upwards of 800 pledges, described the annual effort as a way to dispel darkness in the world through the light generated by good deeds.

From the University of Florida to California State University at Northridge, upwards of 10,000 students, faculty and community members turned out, some giving money to charities supporting the victims of genocide in Sudan's Darfur region and Israeli victims of terrorist attacks. At the University of Pittsburgh, students raised money for a fund benefiting Ground Zero workers who became ill from exposure to hazardous materials left behind from the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers.

"There truly is a world of good out there combating the evil," said Goldie Tiechtel, co-director of the Chabad House serving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which had students pin pledge cards on a wall and make get-well cards for kids in the pediatric unit of a local hospital. "We can be proud knowing that these same students who care so much about the world around them are going to be the leaders of tomorrow."

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Occurring just before Rosh Hashanah this year, the Sept. 11 events taxed the energies of organizers, who in some cases also had to put up with weather-related difficulties.

"We got rained out, so we had to bring it inside," reported Rivkah Slonim, co-director of the Jewish Student Center at Binghamton University in New York. "We only got about 800 people participating, but it was still a major success considering the odds stacked against us."