When I first heard the news, I was in math class. We were learning about sequences when the principal came on the loudspeaker. He said that the World Trade Center towers were on fire along with the Pentagon in Washington D.C. He said that two highjacked planes had hit the Twin Towers and one had hit the Pentagon. My heart suddenly just stopped. After the announcement, my math teacher talked about the tragedy for a while. I wanted to go home. I wanted to make sure my family was okay.

The next period was lunch. After I ate, I thought I would walk around for a bit. Walking around, I saw a lot of people crying. I hated to think why. I felt so awful and scared. What was our world coming to? In English class our teacher took us to the library to go on the computers and try to find more information about the attack. I found out more than what was said in school. Apparently, there were more then just three high jacked planes. There was one in each of the towers, one at the pentagon, and one that landed in a grassy area in Pennsylvania. I read on this one website that the one that hit the Pentagon was originally headed for the White House and the one that landed in Pennsylvania was headed for Camp David.

When I got home, my mom was already there. We turned on the T.V and saw the horrible images of the planes hitting the towers, over and over and over. When she finally turned off the T.V, she got up and gave me a hug. I immediately started crying and asked why this had to happen to us. Why did anyone want to do this to us? What had we done to deserve this? Later on my dad came home and I was telling him how I didn’t feel safe in this world anymore, that I wanted to go live in space somewhere. He started telling me that we had the strongest security ever now. He said that we had security on either sides of the United States, that we closed off all borders with Canada and Mexico, and that also we had security above us too. After that, I told him that I felt like I was in a big box.

Almost a week later, my friends Tanya, Lara, Lindsay, and I all were saying how we wanted to help in some way. We had seen all these people on T.V helping and giving donations to the Red Cross and giving food and clothing to the Rescue Workers. So, when we were riding our bikes we thought of an idea on how to raise money for the Red Cross. We thought that we could sell lemonade and ice tea down by a local elementary school. We immediately went down and asked one of the teachers if we were allowed to use their property. She said that it wouldn’t be a problem since due to the Jewish holidays we didn’t have school for the next two days. We spent most of the night planning out what signs to make and who would bring what. The next morning I called everyone at 8:45 and we went right to work.

We had just set the table down when a customer pulled up asking if we were selling American flags. I said no, but we are selling lemonade and ice tea and that all the proceeds will go to the Red Cross. He was nice enough to buy some ice tea. People began to stop by and some gave us large bills without even wanting the lemonade. We stayed out there from 9AM to 6:30PM. The total amount that we made that day was $430. My mom was nice enough to write a little paragraph about what we did and submit it to the newspaper. We all agreed that we would give the money to Tanya and Lara’s mom’s work place. They promised that they would double the amount and hand it over to the Red Cross.

I felt so great about what I did. I kept watching T.V and seeing how everyone around the country was helping out in anyway possible. Even though it may take a while to get back on task, we have to remember that this is America and that if we all just stick together and stay strong we will get through this horrible time.

God Bless America

by LM age 14