Friends of Robert Emmet School (FORES) is looking for Emmet grads--contact me--howardaltman38@gmail.com

When Larry Sherman left the halls of Robert Emmet Elementary School in Chicago's Austin neighborhood as a graduate in 1943, he likely never imagined he would later return to the much-changed school as "Principal for a Day."

Sherman, who served on the board of directors of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation for nealy 20 years, is a volunteer for Mayor Daley's Principal for a Day program, which places about 1,200 representatives from local organizations and business at Chicago schools to attend classes and meet students, in the hopes that those representatives will then help support the schools financially, with manpower or otherwise. After participating in the program for several years, Sherman got assinged to his elementary school alma mater, and quickly realized how much it had changed.

Throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, the student body at Emmet was primarliy Jewish, but today nearly 100 percent of Emmet students are African American and 99 percent are living at the poverty level.

After visiting the school for several years, Sherman sat in on a teachers' meeting and asked them what they needed. Their response, he said showed that the need for assistance was overwhelming: money for field trips, required novels for eight-grade English, paper to print copies of lessons - and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

"That was more or less the catalyst to get started," Sherman said. "I knew that I personally would write a check, but I wanted to expand beyond that."

So, about three years ago, he reached out to some friends who were also Emmet alums and formed the Friends of Robert Emmet Steering Committee, which now has about a dozen members. They complied a mailing list and sent letters asking people to participate and send them other names of alums. Today they are in contact with about 400 Emmet alums.

"These kids have very little," Sherman said. "So we got together to figure out what can we do for the school."

Several of the alums, Sherman said, including Howard Altman, Bruce Bachmann and Larry Glick, are also very active members of Chicago's Jewish community as well as a part of the JUF family. Together they are showing that Jews don't just help out within their own community, but have a vested interest in the community at large.

"For some reason there's a certain affinity for Emmet," said committee memebr Altman. "Our goal is to expand our mailing list in order to raise more money to do as much as we can for the kids."

SInce the formation of the committee several years ago, they have provided funding for school field trips, eight-grade English books, paper and so much more. They brought in speakers, like professional football players, the head of the Culinary Institute in Chicago for the older students and the Kohl McCormick StoryBus for the younder students. Some children come to school in T-shirts during the winter, Sherman said, so the committee donated clothing and put together a "clothing closet" for the students to use while at school. Sherman's granddaughter, a Girl Scout, collected books, and Howard Zar, another committee member, formed a social group that remodels old bicycles, which were then distributed to 15 students based on attendance, grades and good attitudes.

"Our biggest achievement so far was when we sent 21 kids to the Austin YMCA this past summer," Altman said. "When the kids were leaving at the end of the four weeks they were crying, they were so appreciateive." With some extra funding they were able to send some of the students to camp for an additional week.

Most recently, Sherman and Altman personally delivered backpacks, in Emmet's colors and embroidered with the school mascot's logo, an eagle, for the first, second and third-grade students.

"What we're frustrated about is how little the Chicago Public Schools do," Sherman said. In the coming years, he said, they hope to start mentoring and reading programs and to expand the camp program each summer.

Emmet assistant pricipal Terrence O'Reilly said he is grateful to the Friends of Robert Emmet School for providing the students with supplies and opportunities they might not have been able to have otherwise.

"They still feel a strong connection to the school and have been very helpful to us over the last several years," O'Reilly said. "They just don't talk about what they'd like to do, they really have acted on it."

Several years ago a few Emmet Alums started a group called FORES--Friends of Robert Emmet School--to date we have donated books-computers-clothing and sponsored field trips, guest speakers and other scholastic programs--Today, we have sponsored 25 Emmet students to a free 4 week camp experience at the Austin YMCA---We have at present about 400 alumni of Emmet on our mailing list and our immediate mission is to at least double that number--if you would like to be included on our (snail) mailing list or any friends that you remained in touch with-- --please contact me or Larry Sherman (1943) lawsherman@puritanfinance.com -You can call me at 312-953-6667---Look forward to hearing from you,

Howard Altman (1952) howard@altmanmachinery.com