Question: How did passengers repay the Canadian town that took them in after their Atlanta-bound flight was grounded for several days following 9/11?
Answer: They endowed a scholarship. Delta Flight 15, bound from Frankfurt to Atlanta, was one of dozens of planes ordered down at Gander, Newfoundland, after the FAA closed U.S. airspace, and its passengers spent three days in Lewisporte, a small bayside town that opened its school and homes to strangers. On the final leg to Atlanta, passenger Shirley Brooks-Jones passed pledge sheets down the aisle and collected $15,000 before the plane landed. The Lewisporte Area Flight 15 Scholarship Fund has since grown past $1 million and sent hundreds of Newfoundland students to college.