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The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
A
vailable online at www.sciencedirect.com
9/11 Volunteerism: A pathway to personal healing and
community engagement
Seana Lowe Steffena, Alice Fothergillb,∗
aThe Transformative Leadership Institute, Longmont, CO 80501, USA
bDepartment of Sociology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
Abstract
This paper is a longitudinal analysis of the impacts of spontaneous volunteerism on those who
responded to emergency needs immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center in New York City. Our qualitative study investigates the long-term implications for
the volunteers who participated in a myriad of helping behaviors ranging from working on the bucket
brigade to serving food to rescue workers to working as translators for victims’ families. This project
consists of two waves of data collection. The first set of in-depth interviews with 23 volunteers was
conducted in the weeks following the attacks in the fall of 2001. In the second wave of interviews over
3 years later, we interviewed 20 volunteers, nearly half of whom were original respondents in the first
wave. Through our analysis, we found that taking action facilitated meaningful therapeutic recovery
from feelings of victimization following the event. In addition to the apparent long-term impact on
personal healing, the opportunity to volunteer had lasting impacts on self-concept that translated to
significant changes in life choices. The second wave of research also reveals that the experience of
action impacted the volunteers’ community sentiment by fostering new levels of identification with and
affinity for members of their community. In addition, community response work in the aftermath of a
disaster appeared to increase community engagement in non-disaster times.
© 2009 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In September of 2001, thousands of people converged on New York City to help meet
the needs of the tens of thousands of people perceived to have been injured or killed in the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Those “helpers” (Fritz & Mathewson, 1957),
who are typically the earliest responders on the scene before disaster officials arrive (Mileti,
∗Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 802 656 2127.
E-mail address:Alice.Fothergill@uvm.edu (A. Fothergill).
0362-3319/$ – see front matter © 2009 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2008.12.005
30 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
1999;Tierney, Lindell, & Perry, 2001), numbered more than ever seen in the history of the
National Red Cross up to that time. Given the extraordinary nature of the attacks and their
impact on disaster response organizations such as the Office of Emergency Management,
which lost its infrastructure with the collapse of the Twin Towers, these volunteers played a
critical role in relief efforts amidst the “vacuum of authority” (Halford & Nolan, 2002), and
demonstrated enormous creativity in their response efforts (Kendra & Wachtendorf, 2003).
Volunteers continued to give their time and energy even after the professional responders were
in place at the disaster scene.
It is a sociological phenomenon that community-wide disasters elicit a “therapeutic com-
munity” response (Barton, 1969;O’Brien & Mileti, 1992). However, not much is known about
those who respond in a disaster and their experiences as volunteer responders. Research has
found that younger people are more likely to respond as volunteers than older people (Kaniasty
& Norris, 1995) and those who attend church have more opportunities to volunteer in disasters
than others (Nelson & Dynes, 1976). Neighborhood groups also have been known to demon-
strate prosocial helping behavior in response to neighbors’ needs in the wake of a disaster
(Rodriguez, Trainor, & Quarantelli, 2006), although typical bystanders may be likely to help
only if it is low risk and personally beneficial (Avdeyeva, Burgetova, & Welch, 2006). Disasters,
unlike many other volunteer opportunities, organize around one “focusing event” (Birkland,
1997) that often elicits a “mass assault” of volunteers (Barton, 1969) who are sometimes seen
as a problem or disruption to official response efforts. On the other hand, some feel that the
media could do more to promote helping behavior on a mass level (Avdeyeva et al., 2006). In
the last several decades, research on volunteerism in disaster events has produced conflicting
conclusions, and no study that we are aware of has ever examined long-term implications of
disaster volunteerism. Thus, there is a need to better understand those individuals who vol-
unteer in response to disasters and the ways in which such acts of volunteerism affect the
volunteers and their communities in the long term.
Our goal is to increase knowledge about the lasting impacts of helping behaviors for those
volunteers who respond to need in times of disasters. We examine the understudied experiences
of spontaneous volunteers, or those individuals who contribute on impulse immediately after
a disaster (Tierney et al., 2001), by focusing on those who converged following the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center. Our previous work on this project examined the motivations,
behaviors, and immediate impacts of the altruistic responses of spontaneous volunteers to the
disaster of September 11, 2001 (Lowe & Fothergill, 2003). We explained how the primary
motivation for volunteers who took action to help was a compelling need to transform the
negative effects of the disaster by doing something positive. We found that, consistent with
what is known of the typical extrinsic and intrinsic motives in the volunteerism literature
(Isley, 1990), the volunteers in New York were both self-oriented and other-oriented. They
wanted to help others relieve their pain and suffering, and wanted to help themselves by taking
positive action for change. For those spontaneous volunteers we interviewed in 2001, it was
both their concern about meeting community needs and their own experiences of victimization
that influenced their volunteer behaviors. In their quantitative analysis of national survey data,
Beyerlein and Sikkink (2008) found that the 10% of Americans around the country who
volunteered after 9/11 were motivated by personal identification with the victims, formed by
factors such as knowing someone who was in danger that day, feelings of responsibility to help
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 31
others, or seeing victims as part of an “American family” (p. 190). In addition, they found that
it was sorrow, rather than anger, that fostered the identification with victims, and that living in
New York, Northern New Jersey, or Long Island, and especially living ten miles or less from
the World Trade Center increased the likelihood of 9/11 volunteerism (Beyerlein & Sikkink,
2008). Thus, while all Americans were affected by the events of 9/11, the residents of New
York had a unique experience with the disaster.
Research has found that many New York residents experienced profound trauma as a result
of the September 11th terrorist attacks. They suffered higher rates of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD) and depression after 9/11 than other individuals in other parts of the region
or country. Galea et al. (2002) found that one of the main predictors of PTSD was living in
Manhattan south of Canal Street (an area close to the World Trade Center) and that depression
was greater for individuals who had greater losses in the event (including loss of friends,
possessions, or jobs). In another study, Schlenger et al. (2008) found an association between
PTSD and direct exposure to the 9/11 attacks, and that the prevalence of PTSD was higher in
New York than in other parts of the country. Bonanno, Galea, Bucciarelli, and Vlahov (2006)
revealed that while there was a surprising amount of resilience among New York residents after
the attacks, even among those with PTSD, resilience was less prevalent among more highly
exposed individuals. Furthermore, in a study of relief workers at the World Trade Center site,
Zimering, Gulliver, Knight, Munroe, and Keane (2006) found that indirect exposure through
survivor narratives and media, even in the absence of personal connection, could also lead to
PTSD although such circumstances do not meet the criteria for PTSD in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Overall, New Yorkers were tremendously affected emotionally and psychologically after
the September 11th attacks and needed ways to resolve the traumatic impacts of the event.
Indeed, the majority of the spontaneous volunteers who were interviewed for this study felt
the compelling need to “act or be paralyzed,” which is reflective of how traumatic shock can
risk overwhelming one’s capacity to respond (Levine, 1997). In the first wave of our project,
the data revealed positive mental health effects on volunteers from the social-psychological
process of redefining the situation when they intuitively acted as agents of their own and their
community’s recovery. Respondents transformed their feelings of victimization to feelings of
efficacy through the experience of focusing their negative and painful emotions into positive
acts of service. In the end, their altruistic motives to serve members of their community during
a devastating crisis served not only their community’s needs, but also their own emotional
healing. We concluded that they transformed their experience by spontaneously volunteering
as early community responders, which changed them from passive victims of loss to empowered
participants in their community’s recovery process (Lowe & Fothergill, 2003).
It was clear that the opportunity to respond as volunteers affected the participants deeply
at the time we first interviewed them in 2001. Yet we wondered about the viability of lasting
effects for spontaneous volunteers and their community. For example, would those actions
have any relevance to them personally in the long term? In addition, we sensed a shift in their
perspective on community engagement and were left pondering, how might these impacts
manifest years later? Given that typical volunteer behavior is highly correlated with other-
oriented altruistic motives and a sense of community, it followed that there might be some
lasting community involvement (Penner & Finkelstein, 1998;Omoto & Snyder, 2002). What
32 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
lasting changes would they experience as a result of the volunteerism that was brought on by
a traumatic experience? Thus, it was these types of questions that motivated us to return over
3 years later to study the long-term implications of spontaneous volunteer work.
2. Setting and methods
This research project on 9/11 volunteers consists of two waves of data collection, with the
first in 2001 and the second in 2005. The first phase of the project took place in the fall of
2001 when we interviewed 23 volunteers, primarily on site, in the days and weeks following
the terrorist attacks. In the follow-up study we returned to New York City in January 2005
and attempted to contact and interview all of the original subjects. Of these, we were able
to locate and interview nine of them. In addition, we interviewed 11 participants who also
volunteered in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but were not in our original sample, bringing
the second-wave interview sample of 20 to approximately half original participants and half
new participants. Of the 43 total interviews, nine subjects were interviewed in both the first and
second wave of data collection, 14 in the first wave only, and 11 in the second wave only. All
43 interviews from both waves were tape recorded and transcribed. Interviews were conducted
in participants’ apartments and workplaces, in coffee shops and restaurants, and at our hotel;
40 interviews were face-to-face, and three interviews were conducted over the telephone. The
participants were found through the use of a snowball sample technique in both phases of the
research project. For this analysis, we utilize all 43 interviews but place an emphasis on the
2005 follow-up interviews.
The 23 first-wave interviews and the 20 second-wave interviews were in-depth and
exploratory, lasting between 1 and 2 hr. There was diversity in both waves of participants, with
a wide range of ages and religions, incomes from low to very high, and gender balanced at 17
males and 17 females in the two waves combined. The participants were fairly educated, with
most having college degrees. While most of the participants were white, nine participants were
people of color, including the following ethnic and racial backgrounds: Vietnamese, Native
American, Iranian, Moroccan, African American, Korean, and Mexican American. Four of the
34 participants identified as gay or lesbian, and the remainder identified their sexual orienta-
tion as heterosexual. In terms of ability status, one participant identified as visually impaired
and another as terminally ill, while the remainder identified as able-bodied. While there was
some mix for marital status, most of the participants were single, including never-married
and divorced. Two of the 34 participants were military veterans. Occupations were varied,
and included sales, acting, city government, writing, art, real estate, computer programming,
graphic design, nonprofit work, clowning, massage therapy, teaching, nursing, and restaurant
work. Some participants were unemployed at the time of the interview. Pseudonyms were
created for all of the participants to keep their identities confidential.
The study participants performed a wide variety of tasks in the disaster aftermath. Some
of their activities included preparing and serving food to rescue workers, giving massages
and doing energy work on police officers and fire fighters, translating relief documents for
victims’ families who did not speak English, working with a clown troupe in the streets
to lift spirits, standing in the “bucket brigade” and passing the rubble from one person to
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 33
the next, giving first aid to those having difficult times breathing in the ash-filled air, doing
database entry, and coordinating other volunteers. It was noteworthy how many of the par-
ticipants had difficulty finding avenues to participation. For example, one man was told that
his blood could not be accepted because he was gay, one nurse was turned away at many
hospitals and clinics because they had enough staff to handle the clients, and others waited
in lines for hours to discover there was not any volunteer work to do of any kind. For the
majority of the participants, the action they took happened after several failed attempts to
serve.
In the interviews, participants were asked to reflect on their experiences on the day of the 9/11
attacks, to describe their experiences and reactions, and to discuss why they chose to participate
in spontaneous volunteerism and the effect it had on them. Questions in 2001 included: “What
were your thoughts and feelings between first hearing of the situation and taking any action to
help?” “What are all of the ways that you helped or tried to help make a difference following
the attacks?” and “Why did you volunteer?” In the second wave of interviews more than 3
years later, the questions centered on lasting effects of the volunteerism and any shifts in
commitment to or involvement in community life. For example, some of the questions asked in
2005 were: “How has your 9/11 volunteerism affected you?” “What changes have you seen in
yourself as a result of volunteering after 9/11?” and “How has your involvement in community
activities been affected by your volunteerism after 9/11, if at all?” The data analysis process
involved transcribing the data and organizing it from the sensitizing concepts of individual and
community to induce conceptual categories. Both researchers conducted independent analyses
and brought the results together to ascertain a valid organization of the results. The results
yielded noteworthy information in three conceptual areas which will be discussed in detail in
the following section.
3. Findings
In this section, we will present our main findings from the interviews. Again, while we
utilize all 43 interviews in our analysis, this paper emphasizes the findings from the second
wave of the data collection, as we are most interested in the long-term issues and any last-
ing impacts from volunteering following the disaster. First, we discuss how the volunteers
were traumatized by the attacks and the ways in which the volunteer work contributed to the
volunteers’ personal healing. Second, we explore how the experience of volunteerism affected
self-concept and the alignment of life choices with the volunteers’ sense of themselves. Finally,
we examine the volunteers’ sentiments about their community and their shifts in community
involvement.
3.1. Personal healing
Many of the volunteers in our study were traumatized by the attacks on September 11th. A
considerable number of them saw people jumping to their deaths and witnessed the collapse of
the buildings. The volunteers personalized the disaster as a result of what they witnessed, which
resulted in feelings of victimization and a consuming need to help. Arthur, a white 41-year-old
34 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
writer, wrote this entry in his journal that he shared with us:
Astonished and appalled – clearly – that’s a person falling out of the smoke and into the light.
One person plummets headfirst straight down, arms and legs akimbo, almost gracefully. Then
another. The last person in a dark blue suit falls feet first, facing the tower. Their legs pump
widely as if running in place. I turn my head away. People around me weep and shudder.
Later in his journal, he wrote that he was “lucky” to have been able to do something to
help in the aftermath. Patrick, a 58-year-old psychologist who was 100 yards from the Towers
when he watched one of the planes hit the building where he worked, wrote in a letter to his
wife that he gave to us: “I saw horrors and soaked them up like a sponge.” The participants
in our study spoke to us about how these experiences upset them and motivated them to find
ways to contribute to relief efforts in some way. They expressed that at the time of the attacks
they felt helpless, angry, horrified, sad, overwhelmed, out of control, shocked, incredulous,
and traumatized. As mentioned earlier, many New York residents were more at risk to PTSD
and depression immediately following 9/11 from both direct and indirect exposure, with 20%
of those who lived near the World Trade Center suffering from PTSD (Galea et al., 2002).
In 2001, the study participants spoke overwhelmingly of the positive, empowering, and
connecting experiences they had when they were able to help other people in New York. They
articulated how the need to volunteer was overpowering and how finding a way to contribute was
therapeutic for them. In the second wave of interviews in 2005, the participants also reflected
on their compelling need to help in the aftermath. Elizabeth, a 40-year-old white computer
programmer, for example, explained how overwhelmed she was by the need to participate: “It
was like you were so thirsty and you needed to find something to drink.” Joy, a young woman
who was battling a brain tumor when she volunteered after the attacks, expressed that she
had to transform her pain and sadness from 9/11 into something positive by volunteering as a
crisis counselor. Taylor, a professional in her 20 s originally from Hong Kong, stated, “I think
emotionally... at least you were doing something or trying to do something.”
Many of the 9/11 volunteers noted that it was unimaginable to think of not having responded
during the aftermath, and that their choices were right for them and their community. Azar,
an Iranian American woman in her 20 s, expressed this view: “I would hate to look back and
think I did nothing.” Arthur, who worked on the Ground Zero debris pile, explained: “When
I’m on the pile with 50 guys and we’re making progress, I am as exhilarated as I have ever
been. Imagine if we found a survivor.” Later, reflecting on his work, he said his volunteerism
was “an interesting experience and it was a good experience and it was a unique experience. It
was also, I think, the right thing to do not only because it was right to try and help people but
it was the right thing for myself to deal with it later.” Owen, a 39-year-old businessman who
organized food tents and the volunteers to staff them for over 2 months, explained:
I felt like I had to do something. I just felt a deep need to do something. Once I started doing it I
realized that, oh I don’t have to be totally depressed. So many people had the same experience.
They were depressed. They felt like they had been punched in the gut and couldn’t respond. I
asked myself, ‘Do I have to sit here and take this?’ I have got to do something about it. I have
got to help somehow.
Jack, a professional in his 30 s, felt similarly. He remarked that his volunteer work was a
“healing experience” and “one of the best days of his life.” Steve, a waiter in his 50s, felt that the
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 35
volunteer work was not “glamorous” but was “very healthy,” and Briant, an African American
in his 30 s who watched the attacks from his office nearby, explained why participation was
part of his healing process:
You really felt that you had to do something in response to that besides sitting around and
thinking about it, especially if you witnessed it...I think seeing it was a different thing. I think
seeing it made you more likely to want to do something...I think that [volunteering] was also
for me part of a healing process...When you really start to think about what is going on, what
actually just happened, initially you’re sort of stunned. Then the shock wears off. At that time,
you realize, what can I do, how can I make sense of this? How can I make sense of the enormity
of witnessing something like that....You felt kind of helpless and you felt that you really needed
to do something.
While the volunteers often felt pride and satisfaction from their volunteer work, some of
them also felt guilt from what they perceived as the self-serving nature of their motives to
be part of the relief work. They were aware that there were both intrinsic (self-oriented) and
extrinsic (other-oriented) motives in their actions. Catherine, who had served food to rescue
workers, expressed how she was proud of her volunteer work, but also admitted that a part of
her effort was self-oriented:
And I kind of do feel like being a part of history and having a sense of, I did do something
during that time. I didn’t just sit and watch CNN or I just didn’t freak out. There was that
action.... I think now that I am still really happy that I could do that. ... I am proud to be
able to have done something....But it was this weird thing, like you were just desperate to do
something and it was also about you as much as it was about helping others.
The study participants sometimes spoke of their “selfish” motives with some feelings of
embarrassment. In some interviews, these comments came to the surface in a somewhat
confessional way. Esther worked to come to terms with her guilt about her self-oriented motives:
I struggled with it for a while because I wondered if it was an ego thing. I kept thinking if it
was for them or for me. There is both. Some of it is for them and you have to do it and you get
a lot out of it.
Josh, who worked on the bucket brigade, felt that his motives were “equally altruistic and
selfish.” Participants who felt guilty about how their involvement helped their own healing
struggled with the dissonance and engaged in different strategies to reconcile it. Arthur, for
example, had lied to get to Ground Zero because: “Part of it was to see what happened but also
I wanted to volunteer and get out there.” He continued these thoughts:
I thought it was a selfish reason because I wanted to do something so it was for me to be
somewhat at peace with that later....I saw what happened and you feel pretty helpless and it
was like, what can you do when you are not an emergency professional?.... It is in my city, so
you have to be able to do something. For me, donating money or talking about it isn’t enough.
I should have been able to get in there and be able to volunteer. It should not have been so
much of a challenge to get in there.... Even if it is a selfish reason that you don’t want to feel
helpless in the world and you want to do something. Ultimately, they are doing something that
is genuinely helpful.
36 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
Some volunteers mentioned that some type of work should be created so that everyone who
needs and wants to volunteer in a disaster situation can have that opportunity to serve and to
heal. Others, such as Azar, felt that jobs cannot be created just so volunteers have something
to do. Indeed, in her opinion, such a strategy would be self-centered:
You are not going to create jobs for volunteers! ...That comes under the place of supreme
selfishness...So many people want to help because it would have helped them with their
feelings and with their issues and maybe their guilt... And that is not why volunteers are
needed...As far as creating something for people to do because it would have made them feel
better—no.
While Azar expressed clear opposition to the idea of creating volunteer work for the sake
of the volunteers, she also is devoted to volunteerism and after 9/11 began work in an agency
specifically designed to match volunteers with service that need to be done.
Our research confirmed that helping yielded long-term positive benefits for the participants’
personal healing after the disaster. Their actions after 9/11 provided the volunteers in our study
with a way to take action and feel empowered by contributing something positive during such
a negative time. Because many of our participants became emotional and some cried during
the interview, it appeared that perhaps there was still some healing to do. Several mentioned
that they do not talk with others about the experience and appreciated having an opportunity
to share again in our interview. For example, Taylor mentioned that our second interview with
her in 2005 made her realize that some aspects of the disaster were still unresolved for her and
she might call the free counseling hotline that we informed her about:
It was so horrible and overwhelming that I put it [counseling] off. So thank you guys for
bringing it up and you inspire me to make a call and talk about it more and maybe write about
it more.
Interestingly, many of the volunteers in our study had not sought professional counseling
help because they perceived that others were more in need due to their personal losses. Thus,
in light of that, their volunteer work took on even greater importance in their psychological
recovery. Overall, we found that participants in the study expressed increased emotional healing
because of their efforts to help others in the disaster aftermath.
3.2. Self-concept
Beyond the impact of helping recover from the trauma of 9/11, the importance of disaster
response on volunteers’ sense of themselves and subsequent life choices was a striking finding.
Other research has found that individuals who participate in disaster volunteer efforts, such as
sandbagging in a flood disaster, feel an empowered sense of self and a pride in their capabilities
(Fothergill, 2004). In alignment with such research, these data revealed a high level of lasting
impact on self-concept, which we define as the understanding of one’s values and how one’s
choices reflect those values in life. As a result of taking action, nearly all of the spontaneous
volunteers experienced some shift in self-awareness and some alteration in life choices based
on their increased awareness. Participants described altered or expanded views of themselves
and priorities in their lives that, for many, were embraced as a return to their true selves. For
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 37
example, Laura, a 39-year-old divorced woman who organized medical supplies for Ground
Zero for 3 weeks, explained:
It was my community affected and I was going to do something about it. And, it was also a
sense of pride that I had to come out and help and we had to come together as a community
and do all that we could to combat this, this attack.... And, I believe that, my visceral reaction
to the attacks on our city and my instinctual reaction and need to help brought me back to who
I was always as a core person.... I feel that every aspect of my life has changed completely,
both personally and professionally.
Patrick, a psychologist who saw the Towers – where he worked – collapse, assisted with
mental health counseling in the aftermath. The opportunity to take positive action affected his
feelings about himself and his purpose in life:
For myself I think I’m fortunate to have volunteered. Had I not, I’m not sure how I would
feel about myself. In fact, I’m pretty sure I would feel like cowardice. For my community, I
know my being there helped a lot of other people from my community who couldn’t be there.
In some ways they felt represented. I’m more confident. Less worried. More open. See some
things as less absolute or black and white. More likely to act charitable and not just think about
charitable acts. Continue to feel that helping others is a calling and struggle to balance that
with a job that keeps the lifestyle we’ve grown accustomed to.
Josh, a 24-year-old actor who worked on the bucket brigade, had a distinct shift in self-
concept as a result of volunteering:
This is what it did for me: I stopped feeling like an American and I started feeling like a citizen
of the world... it made me really, really start to look at okay, am I going to walk through this
world comfortable with not really caring about a large percentage of the world or am I going
to try to get more involved with how I feel in my immediate community and where our nation
is as a whole in the world community? I think that was probably the fundamental shift that
occurred for me. I felt less like an American and more like a human being as a result.
For Monty, a white nurse in her 30s, her shift in self-concept involved a greater valuing of
herself as a nurse. When she rode her bike across the Brooklyn Bridge, the police would not
let her pass until they learned she was a nurse going into the city to help treat victims:
They stopped me and they said that I can’t go in and I said: ‘I am a nurse and here is my nursing
license and I want to do whatever I can.’ They said: ‘God bless you, and do what you can do.’
I have never had that.... I have had a problem with nursing for so long that I felt like it is not a
valued profession.... I think it made me feel like I had chosen the right profession...I still have
doubts about it but I feel like it is something that I can use and that is needed in the world...I
think that changed my experience about feeling like I was offering something.
Thus, the police’s and others’ responses to Monty in the aftermath translated to greater pride
and ownership of her identity as a nurse. Valerie, a professional clown in her 50 s, also grew in
her appreciation for her profession: “I think that I have become more impassioned to clown. I
have to do it.”
Others, however, did not feel a sense of usefulness or pride in their personal choices in
the 9/11 aftermath. Catherine and Lucy, two white women in their early 30 s, were deeply
discouraged by having nothing useful to give. The experience of realizing: “We are M.B.A.s
38 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
and we don’t have any skills for disaster relief. They don’t need strategy, they need people on
the ground, they need people who have a certain expertise” left them feeling that, “We just had
nothing to contribute.” This revelation affected how they viewed the relevance of their career
choices as meaningful reflections of what they truly valued in life.
Over one half of the volunteers in our study spoke of the ways in which the trauma and
their subsequent volunteerism changed their views of what they should be doing with their
professional lives, thereby choosing to embark on new career paths in directions that were
more civically oriented. Following 9/11, several participants made career changes toward “care
work,” defined as the physical and emotional labor of nurturing fellow citizens, or “invisible
civic engagement” (Herd & Meyer, 2002, p. 665). Laura, whose volunteer work immediately
following the attacks involved organizing medical supplies, changed her career from fashion
design to directing a nonprofit organization. Her organization, which she founded to com-
passionately serve people suffering from disaster-related crises throughout the nation, grew
quickly and successfully due to her passion for her work. Azar also decided on a career change
after her 9/11 volunteer work. During the disaster aftermath, Azar provided meals for relief
workers on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift every night, and then headed to her paid job during the
day. After this valuable experience, she chose a new job where she would be actively organizing
and managing volunteers, getting them out into the community in a wide range of volunteer
projects. Azar explained that the new work was a “100%” shift and has “...nothing to do with
whatever I had done before.”
Mohammed, a restaurant worker in the Twin Towers who lost 74 of his long-term coworkers
– people whom he considered family – in the attacks, did volunteer advocacy on behalf of
the victims’ families. During his volunteerism, he developed a broader understanding of the
injustices faced by undocumented workers in New York, especially for those of color and
those who do not speak English. As a result, he chose to leave the service industry and devote
himself to human rights work full time. His activities included coordinating job placement for
displaced workers, founding an immigrant worker assistance organization, and establishing a
co-op restaurant for those who lost their livelihoods in the attacks. Mohammed discusses his
new commitment:
So, this 9/11 just changed me totally. So, if you ask me “What did you do after 9/11?,” I am still
doing it today and it’s, I think it is like a medicine to me. When I stop doing this, something
might happen to me, but I don’t know. Since I am really, since 9/11, meeting with workers that
used to work with me, with families that they lost husbands or wives. I am helping them. So,
I am organizing and helping families and workers find jobs ....You get half of what you used
to make, but it is something good. It is something like, it is a mission, it is not just working,
it is a mission....That is what keeps me alive and keeps me fighting. The people that have no
money for milk, that they have kids.
Overall, the 9/11 volunteers spoke of how their trauma-inspired volunteer experiences led to
deeper recognition of their values, clarified beliefs about who they are, and altered life choices
to better reflect their true selves. These changes in self-concept as a result of experiencing the
trauma of 9/11 and finding a way to resolve their suffering while helping their community are a
profound consequence. As a result of their healing and their new self-concepts, the volunteers
then embarked on new community relationships and increased community involvement.
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 39
3.3. Community sentiment and involvement
By being able to take action, the volunteers witnessed changes in themselves, and by being
part of the collective effort, they felt more connected to others. The stories of the partici-
pants illustrated that there was a shift in their relationships to their community as a result
of their actions. More expressly, spontaneous volunteers developed community sentiment, or
the subjective measure of positive feelings that group members have for each other and their
community (Christenson, 1979). These positive feelings were exhibited by identification with,
affinity for, and commitment to their community.
In terms of identification with others, several participants spoke of how the activity of
volunteering connected them to a larger, more global community. In addition to the comments
noted by Josh earlier, who experienced a shift to seeing himself as a “citizen of the world,”
Taylor expressed this view of what her actions did for her:
I think [it provided] maybe a sense of purpose or a sense of community, a sense of being
one with everyone; a sense that maybe there was good in the world and I think that -really the
togetherness and the sense of being one with the community; one with, kind of, the human race.
Laura, who organized medical supplies, stated that: “my world has opened up completely” to
include daily involvement with others who share similar concerns on national and international
levels. Jane also continued the relational ties that were established during her volunteerism:
“Right now I am working with some people that I have met through there. My community
opened up. There was a very large community that I am involved with that was not there before.”
A significant number of the study participants also described transforming previously
negative or antagonistic sentiments toward members of their community to positive ones.
Specifically, many felt more connected to and more respectful of police officers and fire fight-
ers in their city, perceiving that barriers and stereotypes had been broken down such that only
the “underlying humanity” remained between them and the officials. This was a notable theme
in the first wave of data collected in 2001 and continued to emerge in the narratives of 2005.
Often the volunteers were in helping situations that put them in more direct contact with police
and fire fighters and they began to see them in a more human way. In general, volunteers
described a lasting impact of seeing “cops as friendlier people.” Olivia, who gave massages to
recovery workers, described how she felt giving a massage to a police officer:
At one point I was working on this policeman in his full uniform with his gun in his holster and
I asked him if he wanted to take that off before you lie down on the table and he said “we don’t
take these off.” So it was just this kind of very bizarre thing...like I had my hands on this guy’s
torso and my hand was so close to this weapon of destruction. Then, here was this guy who
was trusting me and relaxing on the table and having this experience. Not that I think about
this so rigidly, but in my conception of the police, they don’t do that. They have to continually
express this kind of macho, tough-guy-with-the-gun thing. At the same time, I had the police
or firemen be so amazed and interested by what I was doing. These guys are down there on
these 12 hour shifts and digging out body parts, and they were like “wow, you are massaging
person after person in this incredible way and how do you do this? You are barely touching me
and I am feeling so much relief.” So it felt like there was this kind of incredible communication
that would have never happened.
40 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
Briant, who cooked for rescue workers and handed out respirators at Ground Zero, expressed
a similar shift:
It changed my feelings about how I look at people after working with them.... Really spending
time with them [policemen and firemen] and really seeing how they work, I really appreciated
them. If anything, it really did change your view at how you look at strangers, seeing people
really coming together... I think that the suspicion we had for one another, I think that has
been definitely alleviated. It really was a shared experience. I think it made a big difference,
definitely.
The positive experiences of working together with previously unknown or disliked others
in their community fostered greater affinity. Josh explained that:
There is a desire to want to get past debate to try to find some kind of language where people, even
if they see it from the other side, and what ends up facilitating this sense of great community
is actually reaching out and doing some service, doing some kind of action. Maybe it has
something to do with the actual taking an action with at least part of you having a decent
intention behind it. It might be the vehicle that helps remedy all of these other very natural
fear-based responses when some kind of major crisis occurs, whether it is domestically in your
family or whether it is something like September 11th.
Monty, a native New Yorker, remarked that as a result of her action, she felt “a subtle stronger
belief in myself and in people.” She explained her feelings:
I have always loved New York and this just made it so much deeper of a connection. I think
that changed my life because it made me feel like people can get together and do something
and it was very empowering. Out of this very tragic thing you saw the goodness.
Esther, a white woman in her 30s, also expressed the positive consequences of her volun-
teerism:
It was the utmost degree of any sense of community I have ever felt, people at their best. It
was so nice that you had such hope from a tragic experience like that. You can overcome it to
restore your humanity, to connect.
The enhanced community sentiment translated to greater engagement and involvement. Vol-
unteers spoke of how their actions heightened their sense of efficacy, or the belief that one has
the ability to influence one’s environment (Berman, 1997; Gecas, 1989). As a result, the vol-
unteers in our study increased their levels of community involvement after their 9/11 volunteer
experiences. Their community involvement included beginning to volunteer in their communi-
ties on a regular basis or taking political action. This is particularly noteworthy because many
had not volunteered or had not been actively involved in their community before acting as
spontaneous volunteers responding to the disaster. For some, their political concern, which for
many Americans was heightened after September 11, 2001, combined with their experience of
taking action as spontaneous volunteers following the attacks, resulted in new political involve-
ment. For example, Lucy, a real estate professional in her early 30 s, explained: “I definitely
have been more politically active. I volunteered and in fact donated money...my first political
donation ever.”
Some of the study participants found that they searched out for new ways to serve the
community when their 9/11 volunteering was over. Catherine, a magazine editor in her 30 s
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 41
who served food to rescue workers on the “Spirit Cruise,” a boat used in relief efforts, described
how the event made her think about how she wanted to resume all the volunteerism that she
had done in college:
[My 9/11 volunteerism] certainly reminded me of that part of myself. Yes, [volunteering] had
been something that I had been fretting about for years. I think actually, probably just being
down on the boat and working with people, it was like, you know what? Just do it, just do it. I
say yes, definitely!
Since her 9/11 volunteerism, Catherine chose to mentor a disadvantaged student at a local
school to make a difference:
My goal is to get her to apply to college and I have formed a great relationship with her...I get
her report cards, I call her up, we talk through them, I plan outings. So I have decided to do
that rather than just volunteer here and there...It is special to know that you can just change
one person’s life and hopefully through her, others’ lives.
Beyond the commitment to serve their community by continued volunteerism, some of the
study participants found other ways to increase their community involvement. Some changed
career paths to work for the common good, as was mentioned in the previous section, while
others stayed in their pre-9/11 profession, but began to focus their work in more civic-minded
ways. Monty, the nurse, did not want to switch careers, but decided that she wanted to work in a
clinic for underprivileged and homeless people. She felt her volunteer work after 9/11 made her
want to get back to “grassroots medicine.” Jane, an energy and healing therapist in her late 30 s,
worked at the morgue coordinating hundreds of massage therapists who worked on police and
firefighters. After witnessing the use of the healing technique of Reike and seeing the benefits
on individuals first hand, Jane decided to pursue, and became committed to, this new type of
technique in her own work. Sunhee, a Korean woman who served as a translator, focused her
writing more politically, while Buck, a gay artist in his forties, found himself working more
intensely than ever as a result of seeing the importance of being an artist and bringing beauty
to the world. For Olivia, a 50-year-old single mother, it became important to take her work as
a healer beyond her business with personal clients. Because of her 9/11 volunteerism, Olivia
began working on a project that brought a special kind of physical therapy to over one hundred
of New York’s public schools near the disaster site to assist in long-term recovery. Three years
after the disaster, she was still involved in this project and excited about this shift in her career.
Thus, as a result of their 9/11 volunteer work, the volunteers developed new relationships and
respect for community members, and pursued political activities, nondisaster volunteer work,
and new directions in their professional lives.
4. Discussion
This research examined the lasting impacts of spontaneous volunteerism on residents in New
York who experienced the trauma of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The data provide
overwhelming evidence that the volunteers viewed their participation in 2001 as profoundly
important and relevant to their lives years after the attacks. Taking action in response to such
42 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
a horrific disaster facilitated therapeutic recovery from feelings of victimization following the
event. In addition to the apparent long-term impact on personal healing, the opportunity to
volunteer had lasting impacts on self-concept that were reflected by changes in self-awareness
and self-expression. The second wave of research also reveals that the experience of action
impacted the volunteers’ community sentiment by fostering new levels of identification with
and affinity for members of their community. In addition, there were significant shifts and
benefits for the volunteers in their connection to and involvement with their neighborhood and
city, and for some, the nation and world.
Other research has supported the notion that there are positive outcomes of volunteer activ-
ity for the individual. In general, egoistic-altruism alleviates emotional suffering (Batson &
Shaw, 1991) and correlates with enhanced adjustment (Kleinman, 1989). Volunteerism also
can increase satisfaction in life, improve physical health, lower depression and stress, as well
as provide enjoyment, social contact, and recognition (Unger, 1991;Thoits & Hewitt, 2001).
Wayment, Silver, and Kemeny (1995) found that voluntary community involvement is asso-
ciated with reduced negative emotions among AIDS survivors. We extend this collection of
findings by noting that volunteer work in a disaster situation, particularly a terrorist attack,
both facilitates personal healing and enhances self-concept after a traumatic community-wide
event.
The terrorist attacks in New York were a traumatic event, especially for those who lived and
worked near Ground Zero. For the volunteers in our study, they felt victimized and traumatized
by what they had experienced, and they were motivated by those feelings of victimization to
take action. Thus, what is crucial is not solely that they were victims of a terrorist attack, or
solely volunteers responding to meet community needs, but that they had both experiences; the
first prompted the second, and the second shaped how they experienced the first in the long term.
The volunteer work provided the conduit from passive victims of loss to active participants in
their community’s recovery. Their intense experience of distress catalyzed volunteers to engage
in positive action for the benefit of the common good, which in turn inspired them continue to
act for the betterment of their community.
Given the prevalence of indirect traumatic response, it is noteworthy that participating spon-
taneously as volunteers in the disaster aftermath served not only immediate recovery needs in
the community, but also re-defined the intensely negative situation by engaging in healing acts
that inadvertently helped resolve distress and trauma. The experience of choosing to do some-
thing meaningful in the face of such devastation opened new paths or re-focused established
ones for participants toward issues of public concern. In the professional arena, there were
many examples of complete career changes to arenas focused explicitly on serving others. The
data also are suggestive of long-term implications for higher quality of life with positive shifts
in self-concept and heightened community sentiment. In addition, participants articulated how
their views of themselves and their priorities had changed or expanded, and for many they felt
their volunteer work prompted them to identify and act on their purpose in life. It is evident
that volunteers’ empowered action led to continuing action for positive change in their own
lives and in their communities.
This new interest and involvement in issues of public concern for the betterment of one’s
community is pertinent at a time when scholars and practitioners in education, sociology,
and political science have been concerned about the decline of community and community
S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46 43
involvement in the U.S. Late modernity has seen a resurgence of interest in community and
its apparent decline (Brint, 2001; Howarth, 2001), the latter being attributed to social trends
of increased work and financial demands, sprawling and commercialized development, mass
media and technology, and generational change that appear to have displaced social connection
as a priority in time and place (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Sidler, & Tipton, 1991;Etzioni,
1993; Price, 2002; Putnam, 2000). According to Wuthnow (1991, p. 68), the “breakdown of
communities” is a serious problem nationwide for approximately 75% of those polled. Putnam’s
(2000) comprehensive analysis of the “loss of community” question through an assessment of
trends in social capital and civic engagement in the twentieth century addressed the decline.
In his efforts to determine the validity of concerns about the loss of community, Putnam
documented changes in political, civic, religious, work, and social involvement throughout
America. Overall, he found that Americans are not only more disconnected from one another,
but also more distrustful. He noted that, while the rates of change in social trust have been
relatively small and stable for all cohorts, the levels of trust are drastically lower with each
generational succession. Putnam argued that there is a serious problem facing America with
the evident decline of civic engagement and its relational counterpart, social capital.
Our data provide compelling evidence of strong links between the act of engaging in response
behaviors for the betterment of the community following the 9/11 disaster and the development
of community sentiment and lasting social capital as demonstrated by continuing relationships
and involvement in the community. Social capital includes those “features of social orga-
nization, such as trust, norms and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by
facilitating coordinated actions” (Putnam, 1993, p. 167). Because these communal features are
relational and exist in connection with others, their existence over time serves as a foundation
for community engagement with and response to community issues. Not surprisingly, there is
a positive and reciprocal relationship between social capital and democracy (Paxton, 2002).
Thus, increasing community sentiment, involvement, and engagement have far-reaching impli-
cations for society’s daily interactions and accomplishments. In addition, community response
work in a one-time disaster event can increase community engagement in nondisaster times,
which, in turn, makes the community more prepared for any future disaster event.
This is important to consider at a time when nationally and globally, there are heightened risks
of terrorist acts, and also increases in the frequency and destruction of natural disasters (Wisner,
Blaikie, Cannon, & Davis, 2004;International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, 2004). Preparing for future disasters by training community responders who cannot
only meet the immediate needs of communities affected during these focusing events, but also
heal themselves as victims of trauma, could lay a foundation for stronger social fabric pre- and
post-event by cultivating social connections and catalyzing social capital. Communities can
design response plans in anticipation of the “need to do something” by training community
members in high risk areas to be community responders. One way to accomplish this would
be to support the Community Emergency Response Teams, known as CERTs, which began in
the 1980s and are a valuable way for citizen groups to increase resiliency and sustainability
at a local level (Simpson, 2001). As grassroots, volunteer-based organizations, CERTs are
especially important in the immediate aftermath, when organized assistance has not arrived
and people must be self-sufficient. While there is variation, most CERTs involve training
local volunteers in preparedness and response skills, and most receive some local government
44 S.L. Steffen, A. Fothergill / The Social Science Journal 46 (2009) 29–46
assistance. Overall, community volunteer responders will be more effective in disasters if they
are organized before the disaster strikes (Rodriguez et al., 2006). These types of programs can
be seen as examples of how community assets are used to meet community needs.
To conclude, we suggest that future research continue this exploration into how one’s prox-
imity to the disaster and the nature of the traumatic experience may motivate volunteer behavior
and how the volunteer work creates a pathway for the volunteer out of trauma and into a place
of healing and community engagement. It is important to explore how an assets-based approach
of engaging community volunteers contributes to the recovery of those with both direct and
indirect losses. While our work cannot tell us about those who did not volunteer, it may be
worthwhile in future research to examine those in a disaster who identify with victims, feel trau-
matized by the event, but who do not participate in volunteer activities. As Price (2002) noted
in his comprehensive article on civic engagement, it may be that people want to be engaged
and help in their communities, but due to structural factors, they do not have opportunities and
avenues for that engagement. It would be important for us to more fully understand how those
who do not volunteer or assist in some direct or indirect way fare over time and how their
self-concept is affected in such a situation. Based on the findings from this qualitative study,
we expect that future studies will confirm that volunteer work in a disaster aftermath assists
victims in the healing process, aids their self-concept, enhances their feelings of self-efficacy,
and in the long term, increases their emotional connection to their community and their levels
of civic engagement.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the University of Vermont’s College of Arts and Sciences
Dean’s Faculty Grant, the University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Research and Applications
Information Center, and the University of Colorado’s Dean’s Fund for Excellence.
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