Nationwide 911-Minute Challenge Honors 2 Long Island First Responders

WEST SAYVILLE, NY — A nationwide movement challenge with roots in West Sayville is asking people to spend September completing 911 minutes of physical activity in honor of two first responders whose lives were forever changed by the Sept. 11 attacks.

Long Island native Alanna Johnson created the month-long Sweat for Sacrifice Legacy Challenge in memory of her uncles, Timothy “Timmy” Goss, a firefighter assigned to FDNY Marine 1, and Harry D’Onofrio, an NYPD Emergency Service Unit detective and former West Sayville fire chief.

From Sept. 1 through Sept. 30, participants may walk, run, use exercise equipment, play pickleball or golf, or choose virtually any other activity that keeps them moving. Spread across the month, the challenge amounts to about 30 minutes of movement each day.

“Anything that you do counts as movement for the month —I made it so anyone, anywhere can join,” Johnson told Patch.

The campaign also raises money for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and FDNY Fire Family Transport Foundation through direct donations and sales of challenge merchandise.

As of Sept. 1, the effort had raised approximately $3,150 with more than 80 people supporting the campaign in some form, including approximately 44 or 45 people publicly participating in the movement challenge. Others elected to remain off the public leaderboard, donated without participating or purchased merchandise.

Most participants were from across the United States, while some members of an overseas team associated with Johnson’s employer had joined from Vietnam, she said.

The challenge’s theme—“911 minutes. 30 days. One legacy.”—asks participants to move in honor of someone who sacrificed for others.

The sacrifice for Goss and D'Onofrio was made on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Goss had just finished an overnight shift with FDNY Marine 1 and was heading home when the attacks began. D’Onofrio was off duty from the NYPD. Both could have continued home or remained there.

“I think what really hit me is that both of them essentially made one of the most frightening decisions imaginable that morning,” Johnson said. “They had the choice to keep going home and instead chose to go back in.”

Goss returned to Marine 1, which participated in rescue efforts and supplied water after infrastructure around Ground Zero was damaged, Johnson said. D’Onofrio joined the search-and-recovery effort on the pile, where Johnson said he worked for months.

Johnson remembers D’Onofrio once telling her that pieces of the towers had fallen into his pockets while he worked at the site. Yet she said neither man spoke extensively about what he experienced.

Both men ultimately died from illnesses connected to their service. D’Onofrio, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, died in 2021 after spending months in hospice. Goss died June 17, 2026, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

“They sacrificed their future,” Johnson said. “They had to take those repercussions with them for the remainder of their life.”

The idea for Sweat for Sacrifice came together quickly during an emotional summer for Johnson and her family.

Johnson, who grew up in Middle Island and attended Longwood schools, moved to Tampa for work in 2018. She works in technology sales and launched her independent fitness business, Sweat With Slay, on June 1.

Weeks later, Goss’ health suddenly deteriorated following an operation. Johnson returned to Long Island earlier than she had planned, arriving in mid-June. Goss was expected to be moved into hospice but died about two days later, she said.

At his funeral, Johnson saw a flag from Ground Zero and began thinking about how she could use her new fitness venture to honor him.

She also remembered a relative running the New York City Marathon in D’Onofrio’s honor. Since 2021, Johnson had marked each September by climbing 110 floors on a StairMaster—the equivalent of the number of stories in each World Trade Center tower—to remember the heroes of Sept. 11.

When one of her fitness clients offered to complete the ritual with her, Johnson began thinking about an activity that could bring a larger community together without requiring participants to run a marathon or complete an intense stair climb.

She began assembling the challenge around June 23, six days after Goss died. Johnson built the website, designed the campaign and organized the fundraiser herself.

Participants can register for the challenge, dedicate their effort to a personal hero on its Legacy Wall, track their minutes, join a public leaderboard and share their progress using the hashtag #SweatForSacrifice.

Those who learn about the campaign after Sept. 1 may still join and make up the missed minutes, Johnson said. Donations and merchandise sales will also remain open throughout September.

Direct donations are processed through the Pledge platform. Unless a donor selects a different allocation, contributions are divided equally between the two beneficiary organizations. Campaign materials suggest a $30 donation, although people may give other amounts.

Johnson had previously supported Tunnel to Towers, including through a family member’s New York City Marathon fundraiser held in D’Onofrio’s memory.

Her connection to FDNY Fire Family Transport is more personal. The organization helped transport Goss’ wife, Pat, into New York City while he underwent cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Johnson also expects to participate in a Tunnel to Towers event in Tampa in early October that includes a climb of approximately 50 floors. She plans to keep the fundraising effort open at least through that event.

Although Johnson created the challenge in Tampa, the family history behind it is deeply connected to West Sayville.

The West Sayville Fire Department served as a gathering place for Johnson’s extended family throughout her childhood. She recalled attending family celebrations there.

D’Onofrio served the department for 43 years and rose to chief while also spending approximately 20 years with the NYPD

“My uncle Harry was incredible,” she said. “He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

At 6 feet 6 inches tall, D’Onofrio had an unmistakable physical presence, his son Brian D’Onofrio said.

“You knew he was in the room, but you also didn’t at the same time,” Brian said. “He kept in the background, but everybody knew that he was there.”

Harry was deeply devoted to his wife, Meryl, and their family, his relatives said. Johnson viewed their decades-long marriage as an example in her own life and remembered her uncle frequently offering her advice.

“He lived a full life of serving everybody,” Brian said. “Family was his number one.”

Harry’s father was a New York City police officer. Harry followed him into law enforcement, and Harry’s son Patrick later continued the tradition.

Brian and Patrick joined the West Sayville junior fire department when they were 8 and became members of the main department at 17. Both have now served for more than 20 years.

Brian completed his term as West Sayville fire chief in 2025. Patrick is the department’s current chief and is expected to complete his term this year. Patrick’s two children are now members of the junior fire department.

“I kind of followed in his footsteps my entire life,” Patrick said of his father.

Brian said he can see their father’s values reflected in the way the next generation of the family is being raised.

“I saw it right away in my brother—what my dad instilled in me and my brother, what my brother instilled in his kids, and what I’m trying to do now with my kids,” Brian said. “I’m just trying to emulate both of them and do the right thing by my family. That was really the biggest impact for me, how much of a family man [Harry] was.”

Johnson described Goss as a quiet and humble man who helped make her childhood memorable through summer barbecues, days by the pool and family gatherings.

“He was not a man of a ton of words, but he made my childhood—growing up there, barbecuing in the summer, going to the pool,” Johnson said.

After retiring from the FDNY, Goss worked as a captain aboard the ferry traveling between Port Jefferson and Connecticut. He and his wife, Pat, would have celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary, Johnson said.

Both Goss and D’Onofrio left behind children, young grandchildren and marriages that Johnson viewed as models of commitment.

Patrick estimated about 40 West Sayville Fire Department members participated in rescue-and-recovery efforts following the attacks. The department’s rescue truck and a group of members also worked at the landfill during the recovery operation, he said.

The firehouse now has a permanent Sept. 11 memorial outside its headquarters.

A memorial wall bears four bronze plaques honoring people connected to the department and surrounding community: Glenn Pettit, a West Sayville member and NYPD officer killed on Sept. 11; Patrick J. O’Keefe, an FDNY firefighter and Oakdale resident; Charles “Chucky” Jones, a West Sayville member and FDNY firefighter who later died from a 9/11-related illness; and Harry D’Onofrio.

A separate stone monument topped with steel from the World Trade Center is dedicated to first responders. It also bears the names of John Dunn, a Sayville resident and FDNY member who died from a 9/11-related illness, and Jamie Atkinson, a member of the local community ambulance company who became ill after participating in the response.

The West Sayville Fire Department will hold a public ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11, at the firehouse, 1201 Montauk Highway in Oakdale.

The ceremony will honor those who died, those who continue to suffer and those who served in the attacks’ aftermath.

Brian was in middle school when the attacks occurred and remembers the day clearly. He said reading about a historic event cannot replicate the experience of living through it.

“You can only put so much in a history book, as opposed to, going through it,” Brian said. “Living it and reading it are two very different things.”

Both brothers remembered the unity that followed the attacks.

“Everyone put all their griefs aside and grievances aside, and everyone worked together to get the job done with what needed to be done,” Patrick said.

Brian described Sept. 11 as likely the most tragic day many people will ever witness, but said it also brought people together during a time of widespread need.

Johnson wants younger people—particularly those born after 2001—to understand the sacrifices made by first responders continued long after the day itself.

“What I’d want people to remember from that day is, everyone came together to protect each other, to help each other and to unite when things weren’t great,” she said.

Johnson hopes participants who finish the 911 minutes will emerge with a deeper connection to the people they chose to honor, along with a stronger commitment to their own health.

“Use it as motivation and inspiration, right, to move for someone they care about,” she said. “But also, they get to see their own changes in themselves.”

Johnson said she hopes Sweat for Sacrifice becomes an annual response to prevent the events of 9/11 from being forgotten- to concern people —and a way to carry the stories of Harry D’Onofrio, Timmy Goss and other first responders into every September to come.

“It’s going to hold a new meaning for me every September," she said.

To register, add an honoree to the Legacy Wall, purchase merchandise, or donate; visit sweatwithslay.com/legacy.