SPHS Alumni Update

[SPHS Alumni]

Greetings Fellow Southern Graduate:

As new co-chairs of the Membership Committee, we would first like to
thank Frank DeFlavia for the excellent job he has done as chairman of
the Membership Committee for 50 years. As a result of Frank's tireless
work and dedication, we have reached 3,421 lifetime memberships of the
SPHS Alumni Association. While the number of lifetime memberships is
good, we believe that we can do better. Lifetime memberships can now
be purchased on our website at www.sphsalumni.com.

For those of you who are already lifetime members, THANK YOU. We need
your help in our goal to pass the 4,000 lifetime members mark by 2010.
So we ask in conversations with family, friends, neighbors, etc., who
graduated from Southern, that you ask them if they are a lifetime
member of the Association. If they are not sure, ask them if they get
mailings from the Association (we do at least two mailings per year).
If not, then they are not a lifetime member.

Many of us wrongfully assumed that because we received a mailing or
two in the year following our graduation, that we were automatically
lifetime members of the Association. Others of us who received
scholarships and
awards from the Association, or were class officers, also wrongfully
made this assumption. All Southern graduates receive a 1-year limited
membership to the Association immediately after graduation. We will
strive to better communicate this limitation to future classes.

It appears that the existence of our Association and what we do is the
best kept secret in the world. It is our goal to change that. We are
always surprised at the number of Southern graduates who do not know
that we exist. If you should come across such a person, please give
them the Association's website, www.sphsalumni.com, or tell them to
Google "South Philadelphia High School Alumni Association". If they
don't know what that means, tell them to have their children or
grandchildren do it for them to get information about the Association
and how to join us.

As a quick recap, the Association awards approximately $40,000 per
year in scholarships to Southern graduates. In addition, we give funds
to the less fortunate of the student population for essentials. The
Association inducts alumni into the Hall of Fame every year at a
dinner held in May. This year's Hall of Fame Dinner will be held on
May 20, 2009 at the Holiday Inn at 10th Street and Packer Avenue in
South Philly (visit our website for more details). A portion of money
raised during the Hall of Fame Dinner raffle is donated to Southern.
These reasons alone, should be enough for you to persuade others to
join us. Although the price of everything else has skyrocketed, the
one-time cost of a lifetime membership in the Association has remained
at only $25.

Southern graduates are located all over the U.S. and throughout the
world. Because of this, many times we lose touch with our members who
forget to inform us of address changes. Please note that some of our
mailings are sent via bulk mail at a discount rate. Under postal
regulations, bulk mail does not get forwarded. Therefore, it is very
important that you drop us a note to give us your new address. This
can be done by regular mail to the Association or by email to
wpol...@sphsalumni.com.

Our Executive Board is comprised of the most dedicated people you can
find. We are always looking for new people with new ideas to join the
Board. The Board meets once per month. The meetings are held on the
3rd Wednesday of each month at the Prudential Savings Bank at 20th
Street and Oregon Avenue at 7:30p.m. The Board meetings last one hour.

We are pleased to see the number of class reunions are increasing. We
remind reunion coordinators to take advantage of the free advertising
for their event on the Association's website, and with the South
Philly Review. For
those of you who are no longer in South Philadelphia, you can view the
Reunions section of the South Philly Review online at
www.southphillyreview.com/calendar.php#reunions.

Again, THANK YOU to those of us who are already lifetime members. We
ask that you share the information in this message to those graduates
who are not yet lifetime members of this great Association. In
addition to signing yourself up as a lifetime member, you can give a
lifetime membership as a gift to another Southern graduate. Lifetime
memberships may also be purchased as a memorial to deceased Southern
graduates. For lifetime memberships purchased as memorials, please
indicate that the member is deceased.

We especially plea to MEMBERS OF THE CLASSES OF 1975 TO PRESENT. For
these classes, we have very few graduates who are also lifetime
members. While the tendency is to ask yourself, "how will the $25
benefit me?", we ask that you look at it from the perspective of
helping others. Who knows? Your membership might benefit your child or
grandchild if he/she attends Southern.

It is now more convenient than ever to join our Association. YOU MAY
NOW BECOME A LIFETIME MEMBER BY SIGNING UP ONLINE! No more filling out
the application by hand, writing a check, addressing the envelope, and
paying postage. In less than 5 minutes, you can become a lifetime
member. We have teamed up with PayPal, the world recognized secure
portal for handling financial transactions online, to provide you with
the ease and convenience of paying for your lifetime membership online
by credit card, debit card, or by direct debit from your bank account.
There is no requirement that you have a PayPal account. Please help us
reach our goal of 4,000 members by 2010 by clicking on the link below
and joining us. Thank you.

www.sphsalumni.com
Charles Lagrossa '54 & Willie Pollins, Esq. '84
Membership Committee Co-Chairpersons