Far Rockaway High School 
Needs Your Help

ROCKAWAY DESTROYED BY TIDAL WAVE!! MAN-EATING SHARKS SPOTTED ON BEACH 35th STREET. RESIDENTS SWIM FOR THEIR LIVES!

These headlines might be a bit exaggerated but there is a real natural disaster plaguing the Rockaways. This is the destruction of the hopes and aspirations of our youth.

Far Rockaway has again become the forgotten and ignored stepchild of New York City. Geographically and politically separated from the rest of the Big Apple, our school is in urgent need of funds and assistance.

Under the current budget crunch, affecting not only Far Rockaway, but all the schools in New York City, funds are either no longer available or extremely limited for such items as after-school activities, extra-curricular sports, art supplies, clubs, dances, music studies and cheerleaders .

Students do not have the opportunity to learn enough computer and technical skills. How can they compete successfully in college and the business world?

We, as alumni of Far Rockaway High School, should not turn our backs on the current student body. We "have to give back to our roots." No donation is too large or too small. Whether on the corporate or personal level, we will accept any contribution. If you have access to computers, new or used in working condition, art supplies, sporting equipment, laboratory or scientific equipment, musical instruments, WE NEED IT!

It is our obligation as alumni not to shortchange the students at Far Rockaway High School !! If the City can't or won't do it, we have to try.

Please help before Rockaway truly sinks back into the sea!

Please contact Barbara Saber at the Far Rockaway High School Alumni Association, (718) 327-6000, Ext. 341, to arrange for your tax deductible contribution receipt.

Thanks to Barbara for writing and giving us the true state of affairs at Far Rockaway High School today. I would like to add a few feelings of my own. If we believe that we have some obligation to Far Rockaway High School, that we should pay something back to the school and community that meant so much to us, then the decision to help should be an easy one. I am as guilty as anyone who may be reading this as I have never paid alumni dues to the Alumni Association or even thought about helping the wonderful community I grew up in and loved so much.

As this web site has developed, it has become much more to me then just a place to find old friends and share memories. The potential that the internet has to bring us together, can have a very powerful and profound effect on the Rockaway of today and the kids who live there.

I suggested to Barbara (who is currently teaching at FRHS and a graduate of the Class of 1963) that if her students would be willing to correspond with us, that we might get some insight into how they feel about Rockaway, which may not be any different then we felt. I would like to get to know some of them so that when I show up at the reunion and ride down Central Avenue, that maybe they have some understanding of what we are all about and that we haven't forgetten our roots.

Some of you have written in to say that the current administration has not exactly been warm to the idea of our helping. In the next few days, I will be writing to the current Principal of Far Rockaway High School to find out in what ways they plan to support our efforts to help. Without the development of this partnership and a committment from the current administration, giving seems meaningless. It's the kids who need us and the administration must support our efforts to help.

I will keep you informed of my attempts to gain their support, and up-coming plans for a MAJOR fund raising drive. Let's make this the year that it happens for them!

Thanks for you support. Please write and let me know what you think.

Alan "Skip" Weinstock

Class of 1963

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