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Mazel
Toy!
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Some of the _15 Winship alumni who
helped remganize the lilmay.
RONELLE GRIER
Special to the Jewish News
liff any things about Winship Elementary
School have changed over the past 40
years, but the fond memories and loy-
alty of its former students have
remained steadfast.
Their devotion was put into action when a group
of Winship alumni and their families participated in a
daylong clean-up, fix-up program at Alfred E.
Winship Elementary School on Curtis, between
Greenfield and Schaefer, in Detroit on July 28.
The endeavor was sponsored by the "Friends of
Winship," a group formed by the Detroit Jewish
Coalition for Literacy (DJCL), a program of the
Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit.
Phyllis Shawn Jarvis, former Winship student
and project coordinator for DJCL, became aware
of her alma mater's needs when she visited the
school while planning a reunion.
"The library was being used as a storeroom; it was
filled with piles of books from 30-40 years ago,"'she
said. "The windows are the original ones from 1944;
they leak and allow snow inside the building."
Restoring the school library was the goal of the day
as the group boxed up hundreds of outdated books
and replaced them with donated volumes of current
literature and nonfiction.
Although it had been nearly 40 years since many
former Wipship Elementary School students had last
been inside its walls, for most of them it seemed like
only yesterday.
"My whole childhood was spent at Winship,"
said Nancy Loeb Hand of Farmington Hills. "I
wanted to help get it back into the shape it was in
when I went here."
Marsha Hoffert of West Bloomfield, who teach-
es kindergarten at Winship and also serves as liai-
son to the DJCL, was delighted with the progress
that was made.
"Many of our students have never been exposed to
books, and we need to get them to love reading,"
she said.
"It's wonderful to see the alumni coming together
with such heart and enthusiasm, like a family corn-
ing home. What they're doing here is truly a mitz-
vah."
Dr. Gloria Enoex Ealy, principal of Winship,
expressed her appreciation for the work that the
group accomplished.
"This is heaven-sent," she said. "Winship needs so
much help. You can see the decline that's occurred .
over the years. The Detroit Jewish Coalition for
Literacy will help bring back the splendor this
school once had."
Sharon Wayne Sefton of Beverly Hills, a Winship
alumna, participated with her mother, Ruth Wayne,
and her daughters, Jocelyn and Samantha.
"When I heard they were doing something for the
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