Like most Americans, Mike Gordon was
deeply affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. His distributorship, Commercial
Business Forms, sits approximately 15 miles from New York City in Cedar Knolls,
N.J. "We could see the smoke [from the World Trade Center]," says Gordon, the
company's president. "I had neighbors who didn't come home."
But recently, Gordon, president of the
Newark (N.J.) Rotary Club, experienced just how far goodwill has spread in the
wake of Sept. 11. On Sept. 10 of last year, one of his fellow Newark Rotarians,
Al Wickens, was traveling in France, where he dropped in on the Aix-en-Provence
Rotary chapter. Not long after the terrorist attacks, the Newark Rotary Club
received a letter from the Aix-en-Provence members, who had remembered Wickens'
visit. The letter expressed the desire of the Aix-en-Provence club and the Gavi
Laberna club in northern Italy to take up a donation and give it to the Newark
Rotarians to help a family affected by the tragedy.
"They knew we were right in the shadows of New York City," Gordon says. In fact, seven Newark families lost members in the World Trade Center collapse. "My first thought was that they're thousands of miles away," he says of the Rotary members from France and Italy, "but they're still reaching out."
Gordon also found it ironic that, much like New Yorkers were perceived pre-Sept. 11, the French had a reputation for being rude and uncaring, especially to those outside its borders. "These obviously were people tilting that perception in a different direction," he says. "They were showing their warmth and camaraderie with this display of generosity."
Gordon volunteered to pay his own way to France to accept the donation personally. On April 22, he met representatives of the French and Italian clubs at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, where they presented a check for $3,000. "I was truly humbled by what they did," Gordon says. "The importance of this transcends money without a doubt. They really had their heart in what they were doing." Several members of the Newark Rotary Club already have expressed a desire to add their own contributions to the donation, which will be given to a family of four whose father perished in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Gordon also brought home a story to share. Claude Jacquot, one of the Aix-en-Provence club members, told Gordon he had a special reason for reaching out to Americans affected by the tragedy. On Sept. 11, 1944, when Jacquot was 5 years old, U.S. World War II soldiers had liberated his village from the Germans. A U.S. serviceman presented the young boy with his first piece of chocolate. Nearly six decades later, Jacquot was still filled with gratitude. As the song says:
"There is just one moon
And one golden sun
And a smile means friendship
to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide,
It's a small world after all."
—Jonathan Rollins
Representatives of the Aix-en-Provence and Gavi Laberna Rotary clubs present a $3,000 check to Mike Gordon (holding check on right) at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. The French and northern Italian Rotarians made the donation to aid a family affected by the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. Gordon is president of the Newark (N.J.) Rotary Club and president of distributorship Commercial Business Forms, Cedar Knolls, N.J.
