Opening my emails generally provides itself with a few interesting things, new friends and the opportunity to cull my email subscriptions.

When I opened my email this morning, this was all the same and there was an email from Meetup.com with the subject line “9/11 & Us”. As the 10 year anniversary of a day that changed the world forever – and mostly in not so good ways – there are a lot of people writing about the event and some not so nice people using it to tie anything to their brand. So I take the 9/11 phrase with a grain of salt. However, in this instance, the subject line wasn’t full of marketing slang, trying to trigger my senses into opening and following a call to action, but instead a blunt: 911 & Us.

So I opened the email to see what Meetup.com had to say and I’m glad I did. What was inside was an email from the founder, Scott Heiferman, explaining how his experience living near the towers and of community during 9/11 spurred him to begin Meetup.com. It’s inspiring and honest and shows that good things can come from horrible experiences and people do really care about community – on or offline.