On September 11, 2001 tragedy struck America in an unprecedented way. The entire country was shaken, with New York City bearing the brunt of the terror through the attack on the World Trade Center.

List of 9/11 projects >

Update Report 2003 and more photos >

We at The American Ireland Fund felt that such an unparalleled crisis called for an extraordinary response. While the AIF is proud of its mission to support worthwhile charities throughout Ireland and we look forward to re-focusing our efforts in that direction, we believed that this was the time to give back to the US.

For these reasons, we committed to raising $1 million for the AIF's Disaster Relief Fund (DRF). We determined primarily to aid the poorest of the poor who lost their livelihoods, rather than their lives that day. Many of those whom we are supporting are immigrants; we thought this was only fitting as the AIF is primarily composed of those descended from relatively recent immigrants.

At the same time, we re-committed ourselves to aiding the uniformed emergency service workers who lost their lives in order to save others.