NYC-WTC_000230660

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

DAILY NEWS. THURSDAY, OCTOBES 4, 2001 Patriot Prez helps kids deal ivithfear By IVIARTIN MBUGUA and JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS -STAFF WRITERS President Bush tried yesterday to comfort some of the lit- ' tlest witnesses to the World Trade Center catastrophe. ' The students at Public School 130 in Chinatown used to have a direct view of the World Trade Center, and some even saw the planes slam into the towers. | Bush, on his second visit to lower Manhattan since the Sept. 11 attacks, told the children not to be afraid — and that their teachers were there for them. “If you have any worries about what took place at the World Trade Center, they will help you," Bush told a class of first-graders at the Baxter St. school. "They will comfort you. They want to make sure you understand what went on.” Signs of how the disaster has affected the 1,200 students ■ ■ “ abounded: There were crayon ■drawiings of burning planes B and crumbling I buildings hanging in some of the r classrooms. One of L the drawings was j ■ titled, “The Day ( I We Were Very B “He knows what J happened,’’ Cyndi Zhu said of her son, Rick, a third- L grader at the ■ school, “We H shouldn’t hide ev- I erything.” I The students, . I most of whom live in Chinatown, were locked out of their school for al­ most a week after j - the attacks. Yesterday Bush, Mayor Giuliani , and Gov. Pataki led Debra Nelson’s J first-grade class in the Pledge of Alle- giance and then ad­ mired the Stu- I KRISTEN AinZ dents’ patriotic FEELINGS Teacher Debra Nelson posters, on which [ the kids listed the 1 holds picture drawn by student reasons they love ; after Trade Center attacks. the United States. “I love America because the flag is nice and because it has good restau­ rants,” one poster signed by a student named Ezra read. Before walking next door to meet Barbara Seelo’s kinder­ garten class, Bush scrawled his own reason for loving Ameri­ ca on another poster. He wrote: “I love America because I love freedom." Nelson said the President gave all of them a lift. "I’m very glad he came,” she said. “I'm sure the kids are, Coo.” Other teachers said they needed a morale boost after days of trjing to explain the unexplainable to their youngsters. “I just talk to get out my feelings, so I don’t have them in­ side me forever,” said fifth-grader Sharlene Fermin. Many of the kids carried stuffed animals for comfort and clung to their parents. Teachers reported that the school counselors had to calm nervous students down after Are drills. “Wi had to tel] them that they will hear bells and they see lights, but that h’s not real," said Principal Lily Woo.

CITY_21MC100_011830659

NYC-WTC_000230660