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Glenn Winuk | 9/11 | World Trade Center

Glenn Winuk (Photo courtesy of Jay S. Winuk)

Jay S. Winuk is president of the public relations firm Winuk Communications, Inc. and the co-founder and executive vice president of the nonprofit MyGoodDeed. This article was adapted for Constitution Daily from one Jay originally wrote for Yahoo News for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on our nation.

Somehow, 10 years have come and gone since my brave younger brother Glenn was murdered by terrorists on September 11, 2001. The shock goes away, I guess, and some of the pain, perhaps, but not so much, really. Especially now, as this historic milestone approaches. How should we pay tribute to those we lost and those who responded?

The White House recently issued guidelines on how to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 with instructions to honor the memory of those who died on American soil through national service and to thank those in the military, law enforcement, intelligence and homeland security for their contributions since.

Active citizenship is indeed the way I have chosen to honor my brother and all those who were lost and those who rose in service in response to the attacks.

Glenn was a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight, at the time located just a block from what we now call Ground Zero. A 20-year volunteer firefighter and EMT in our hometown of Jericho, NY, Glenn sprung into action when the Towers were hit. He helped evacuate his colleagues, and then raced toward the South Tower, running into the towering inferno to save lives.

Glenn was an active citizen – someone who fulfilled both his rights and responsibilities. Glenn did what firefighters do, and what he had done for two decades. Just 40 years old when he died, his partial remains were recovered in March 2002, medic bag by his side. A true American hero had perished, along with a horrifying number of others.

Glenn was a remarkable person, as giving a man as I have ever known. He always went out of his way for people, and not just as an attorney and firefighter. Taking care of others, doing good deeds, just came naturally to him. It gave him great satisfaction. As brothers, we were very close. We attended the same college, shared many of the same friends and spent many happy times together. Losing Glenn, especially in this way, hurts every day.

How best to honor those lost and, for that matter, those who rose in service to get our nation back on its feet in the aftermath of the attacks? What could we do to ensure they would not be forgotten by future generations?

My friend David Paine called me with an idea soon after the carnage. Let’s make 9/11 a national day of service. Let’s turn the tables, and make 9/11 about acts of kindness and charity and volunteerism in tribute to those who were killed. Sounded just right to me, and to each and every 9/11 family member we canvassed about it.

David and I co-founded the nonprofit MyGoodDeed in 2003, encouraging people to visit our web site and register a pledge to honor the victims with acts of kindness toward others, each and every 9/11 anniversary.

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Alex Sullivan | Mass Shooting

Tom & Alex Sullivan (Photo courtesy of Tom Sullivan)

Alex Sullivan was killed on July 20^th 2012 in the Aurora theater massacre, celebrating his 27^th birthday. In this interview, Tom talks about his relationship with Alex, what he does when he watches a movie at the theater. He reflects on what life is like today without Alex and what he would like America to know. Leaving the statistics to others, he shares the personal things he now knows as a father of a murder victim, all with a goal to get people talking, to get people to do something before they have a similar story to tell.

Since this interview was conducted, Tom announced that he’s running for the Colorado State Senate seat for district 27.

Calls to action:

The Sodina Project shares stories to foster connection and save lives. This grass-roots movement needs your help in connecting with others. Please share the stories and blog posts with your friends and social networks if they have moved you or made you reflective. You will find sharing options at the end of each post.
Consider supporting Tom in his bid for elected office
Visit our gun violence/safety page to learn about and get involved with groups advocating for ways to reduce gun violence.

If you have a story to share about the death of a loved one as a result of violence, please submit your story here .

Sodina | Voices to Stop Violence

#Sodina | #Voicestostopviolence

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Project Longevity

Project Longevity2 Nineteen young men with criminal records who topped the current list for most likely to be shot or of shooting someone else were ushered into a room of standing community members, service providers and law enforcement and then seated in the center-front rows. Eight people stood opposite them and once everyone sat, the Bridgeport Program Lead addressed the men with the basic messages for the meeting:

Violence will no longer be tolerated in our community and must stop
Individuals involved in group/gang activity are encouraged to become productive, positive members of the community
A range of services will be offered to them if they make the choice to transition from the group/gang lifestyle

He then turned it over to the panel who, one by one spoke to the men from their perspective.

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Please Silence Your Phones and Be Aware of Suspicious People

We are being swallowed by a culture of fear as our sense of safety and security erodes every day. How will this fear affect our younger generation and the prospects for our country? What can we do about it?

I settled into my seat last Sunday, days before Regal Cinema’s announcement to check moviegoer’s bags. I checked the locations of the exits in case of an emergency. I know my wife was doing the same. I wondered if my 15 years olds were too or if they were as anxious as I was. Were they looking at the people already seated and the ones coming in, as I was? I’d hoped not, I hoped they were just looking forward to the movie at our local AMC Theater. The announcements started with scenes of the silly animated red characters and accompanying voice-over, “please silence your phones, don’t use your phone to text, and don’t talk as this will distract others.” But then the usual cartoon animation of colliding cows riding in cars stopped, where the voice-over used to say ‘in the event of a cow collision or emergency, please walk to nearest exit…’ The animated scene had been replaced by bold red text and I’m paraphrasing here, to “be aware of suspicious people, if you see someone suspicious, notify the staff.” It continued with “in the case of an emergency walk to the nearest exit and once outside, move as far away as possible.” Being told to walk to the nearest exit and moving far away (also new instructions at least in the last year), has taken on an entirely different meaning since the Aurora, and Lafayette theater shootings and an axe attack in Tennessee.

Maybe we can expect the next version of the movie theater message to sound similar to airplane crash procedures, “In the event of an active shooter, your seat-back can be removed and used as a bullet-proof shield.”

Stories

Emma Jane von Euler | Suicide

Emma Jane von Euler (Photo courtesy of Nancy von Euler)

On June 17, 2009 my precious daughter, Emma Jane, passed away, five days before her 17th birthday. Emma was beautiful, bright, and articulate, with an effervescent personality. She was a talented musician who shared her musical gifts generously and participated in every musical ensemble she could fit into her schedule. She was a caring daughter, sister, and friend and a bright light in the lives of many, many people.

Emma took her own life.

When Emma killed herself she created a tsunami of destruction that swept up family, friends, teachers, ministers, mentors and neighbors. All of us struggled against the current of guilt, pain, shock and bewilderment. For her immediate family: her father, sister and me, life as we knew it ended.

I’m not sure we will ever fully understand why Emma ended her life; what caused what must have been an incredibly deep sense of despair and hopelessness; or why she couldn’t reach out to us or to the many other caring adults and professionals she had in her life. Nonetheless, in the days, weeks and months after Emma’s death I turned to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to learn more about suicide and to search for clues that would help explain why my beautiful, bright, talented daughter was gone from our lives.

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Avielle Rose Richman | Mass Shooting

Avielle Rose Richman (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Hensel)

SODINA’s initial story is in honor of Avielle Rose Richman. Her mother Jennifer Hensel and father Jeremy Richman, started The Avielle Foundation in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. They are both scientists and felt a deep need to understand what contributes to violent behavior. It is through this need to understand, that the Avielle Foundation is funding research in brain health to better understand violence and to promote the building of stronger communities.

‘Our daughter was one of 20 students and 6 educators murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT on December 14th, 2012.

This child was everything to my husband and me. She was the essence of spirit, hope, and love. She loved her family, her friends, and animals. She sang and hummed so much so that her narrative of life was often in song, whether she was singing to us, or humming and singing to herself while engaged in play. She loved to cook with her mom, run with her dad, develop imaginary worlds with her friends, she rode horses, ice skated, she dreamed of one day becoming an artist, she played with her cats and her dog, and snuggled into bed with her parents at night for a regular span of reading books. How does one encompass in written word a child, a loved one? It is difficult to list her many lovely qualities. She was empathetic, kind, and felt no one should be left alone, or out of the circle, and would invite strangers to play. She was whip smart, and so poignantly funny that her parents would often laugh out loud many times a day.

Ask yourselves, what did the world lose when this child was murdered? She could have been a doctor, a teacher, a best friend to someone in need. She could have changed the world. She changed ours, and those who knew and loved her know that emptiness now, acutely and strongly felt were her daily gifts. And now we are left feeling her unrealized potential, shattered and aching to hold her, to smell her, to hear her tinkling laughter, to converse with her. Ask yourselves, what does the world lose when a child is murdered? A community leader? A teacher? A doctor? A scientist? A good parent?…’

– Jennifer Hensel

Calls to Action:

The Sodina Project shares stories to foster connection and save lives. This grass-roots movement needs your help in connecting with others. Please share the stories and blog posts with your friends and social networks if they have moved you or made you reflective. You will find sharing options at the end of each post.
Please visit The Avielle Foundation to learn about and support the they are doing in Avielle’s memory. You can also visit our brain health page to learn about The Avielle Foundation and other brain health related organizations.

If you have a story to share about the death of a loved one as a result of violence, please submit your story here .

Sodina | Voices to Stop Violence

#Sodina | #Voicestostopviolence

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Moving from “Me” to “We”

Moving from me to we. Fostering empathy and compassion.

(Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/19779889@N00/ quote added by SODINA)

It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about us.

We’re here for a very brief period. Although we are ultimately responsible only for ourselves, we do not walk alone on this earth. We rely on each other for companionship and survival.

I live in Newtown, CT and have many questions stemming from the mass murder that occurred here. I never imagined it could happen here, in my neighborhood. Violence is not as remote as it once was. I continue to be horrified, angry, and feel profound sadness for the victims, their families and each degree of separation outward from this massive epicenter. How did we as a country, a community, a neighborhood, a family, a person, allow this to happen? Obviously, no one with implicit knowledge of what would occur would have allowed such an unspeakable act. You wonder about all the potential steps along the way of a person’s life where someone could have changed one thing that may have made a difference and kept the killer from picking up a gun that day or any day. Could the course of events have been altered to the extent that this tragedy possibly would never have happened?

It felt like we as a society have failed so many people along the way, and in small ways we fail a little every day. We also succeed in small ways every day. Can we increase our successes and decrease our failures at a more rapid pace in our struggle to creating cultural change and a more peaceful world?

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What Do Labels Say About Us?

What Do Labels Say About Us-

I was staring out the window where, 24 hours earlier, I had watched the SWAT truck, with its team hanging off, clad in body armor and rifles at the ready, drive down my street. In the background, I could see helicopters fly over the Sandy Hook Elementary School searching for more shooters. I can only describe the feeling as a sense or recognition that I was human, sharing a common bond with others. I distinctly remember, strange as it may sound, shedding any sense of idolization of others, we’re all human.

You and me? We’re the same.

At the most basic of levels, we are the same. We share 99.9% of our DNA. Yet, despite a relatively short amount of time on this planet and no guarantee of a tomorrow, we seem to be geared more towards competition rather than cooperation and collaboration, and we tend to focus on only the 0.1% that makes us different.

We’re brought into this world with an absolutely clean slate, blissfully unaware, innocent, a complete lack of knowledge–let alone any control over who raises us or how. At some point we begin to learn about our perceived differences, whether it’s our gender, ethnicity, socio-economic “status,” values, etc. These labels become ingrained in us. Sometimes they define us. But while we may accept the labels or the perceived differences on some level, we can paradoxically, and maybe conveniently, disregard them on another level when we assume that everyone should think or act the way we do.

Glenn Winuk | 9/11 | World Trade Center

Alex Sullivan | Mass Shooting

Project Longevity

Please Silence Your Phones and Be Aware of Suspicious People

Emma Jane von Euler | Suicide

Avielle Rose Richman | Mass Shooting

Moving from “Me” to “We”

What Do Labels Say About Us?

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