For nine-year-old Collier Willmer of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as for so many children in America, September 11, 2001 meant growing up a little more quickly. Certainly, Collier’s mother wished her children hadn’t seen the images of the planes crashing into the towers, but as they were traveling, “We couldn’t screen them from it. They saw a lot.” And what Collier saw affected her. Like many other school children across the country, she wanted to help in some way. She decided she would perform Irish step dancing in her front yard to raise money for the rescuers.
And Collier isn’t even Irish — she started Irish dancing two years ago after being captivated by Michael Flatley in Lord of the Dance. A picture of Collier dancing appeared as picture of the week on MSNBC’s website and in Newsweek. ♦
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