From One Girl's Legacy, a Promise of Hope
By COREY KILGANNON, NY TIMES, September 19, 2004

Hundreds of people gathered in the rain yesterday at a Queens park to hear the verses of a prolific young poet being read by notable actors, elected city officials and local schoolchildren.

The poet, Hallie Geier, died last May at age 11 after she stepped into the street between two parked cars while walking her puppy, Cherry Lulu, and was struck by a sport utility vehicle. The driver, who stopped immediately, was found not to be at fault.

Later that day, her parents said, they found one of Hallie's old kindergarten notebooks on the kitchen table. It had been left open to a page where, at age 5, she had scrawled a simple plea: "People, be nice to each other. Love, Hallie."

As they went through her books and journals, her family found that Hallie had left behind some 1,000 pieces of writing, many of them strikingly mature, eloquent and hilarious. A sixth grader when she died, Hallie had already become a vegetarian to support animal rights, and saved her lunch money to send to African children with AIDS.

Her family - led by her mother, Sophia Geier, an actress and a television writer, and her father, Ted, a movie producer and distributor - began a campaign and a foundation to carry out Hallie's dreams of a better world.

Yesterday was their first event, Halliestock, billed as "a daylong celebration of kindness, culture and community" in Sunnyside Gardens Park. The event featured musical performances by the disco group Chic, the actress Jessica Harper and a videotape Alicia Keys made for the event, as well as dance and poetry. There were booths set up by nonprofit organizations and community services, and other areas for children to work with clay, paint murals and write poetry.

Hundreds of attendees - good friends of the Geiers and total strangers alike - huddled under umbrellas and stood in large puddles to watch such notable performers as the actor Victor Slezak, who read Hallie's poem "Staten Island Ferry."

"My father told me nothing in the world is ever completely safe," he read, "not even doing nothing."

Since May, the family has organized a team of volunteers to transcribe Hallie's poetry and publish it on Web sites and in a small book called "Fierce Wonderings," which is what Hallie called her writing.

Her poem "Birds" begins: "Birds pour like molasses out of trees." In "Me and My Drum," she begins: "I am/ The oldest woman/ Me and my drum have seen."

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and the local councilman, Eric Gioia, both read writings by Hallie. Mr. Gioia helped get the City Council to declare yesterday Kindness Day, in honor of Hallie.

"She's an incredible young girl," Mr. Klein said.

Mr. Geier said that donations for the event would go toward the nonprofit organization the family has started: the Love, Hallie Foundation, dedicated to promoting kindness, respect and social commitment.

He said he hoped the event would help take Hallie's death beyond tragedy.

"Certain people's lives go on, even after they've left the planet," he said. "This is a life going on."

Hallie's mother said her daughter taught her a lesson even as she lay dying.

"She went through life just looking at everything, drinking in everything around her," Ms. Geier said. "At one point, when we were in the ambulance, I was singing to her. Her vision began to be affected and she turned her head to me and said, 'Mom, I can't see.' It was the last thing she said to me. It just reinforces that we should all keep living life, drinking in everything around us."