Date: 10/17/2001
From: Leslie
To: President George W. Bush
Subject: Samantha's Mission

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for your challenge to the children to help the Afghan children. I have a 6 year old daughter who is having a difficult time dealing with all the recent events, as are many children her age. She has been worried and felt helpless as she knew there was nothing we could do to fix things.

My husband and I have been allowing her to donate to every thing with the date of September 11th hoping eventually she would begin to come out of the fog she has been in, but it hasn't worked. She was a child who loved school and would get angry at me last year when I would make her stay home due to illness and this year she wants to stay home and cries the hole way to school. Last week I told her about your plan. She drew you a picture of a plane delivering food and mailed it to you with her money.

This week she has rushed in from school to do her homework hoping to do well on her tests so she can send more (if she gets a 100% she gets $5 and wants to send the children at least $50 this month). Time will not allow for this but I'm not going to tell her, she'll meet her goal soon enough.

Samantha now feels she can help the children and it put a spark back in her, gave her a mission and she is finally happy again.