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WE DID IT!!!
We have reached our second goal of $400,000 (since January 2006) thanks to the generous support of our alumni, our parishioners past and present, Modell's Sporting Goods, David Dodge, and many local and regional businesses, children from neighboring schools, friends and family of our school children, and many generous supporters hoping to make Tommy's unselfish wish come true. We now have enough to keep the school open for the 2007-2008 school year, (Tommy's graduation year). Now comes the hard part. We hope to continue this effort with an ongoing campaign to keep the school open for many years to come. Hopefully we will see many future generations of Saint Cyril graduates. We would like to thank The Delaware County Daily Times and all the other newspapers and television stations that covered the story and helped get the word out. Lastly we thank Tommy Geromichalos who's letter put into words what many children in the school felt. His wish helped galvanize the community and helped us to believe.
Click
here to read Tommy's wish and the news article that helped get things started.
Click
here to see the history of the SOS effort with links to news articles.
From our Pastor Fr. Edward T. Kearns - May 10, 2007
To all of you who made Tommy's wish a reality:
Jim Gray last night at the Home and School announced that you have raised over
$415,000 since last January. That is incredible! On behalf of the parishioners,
I thank you for all you have done and are doing to keep the dream alive.
As Jim said, "We raised enough for this school year, for next school year
and we're into our third year." This time last year it was hard to
believe that this could happen. It happened because of you and so many others
who decided to strive for the impossible. This goal has been reached because you
and countless women, men, girls, and boys were determined to believe.
May God continue to bless you and those whom you love.
Gratefully,
Father Edward T. Kearns
MODELL’S & THE PHILLIES TEAMED-UP FOR AN AUCTION TO BENEFIT ST. CYRIL "SAVE OUR SCHOOL" FUNDRAISING EFFORT
Photo from Delaware County Daily Times April
3, 2007
Phillies bullpen coach Ramon Henderson returns the ball to
David Wolfson, who threw out the first pitch of the season opener.
David's father, local developer Steve Wolfson submitted the winning bid of
$5,000 and threw in an additional $5,000 donation. They also won 4 seats
in the first row behind home plate with Tommy G, along with food and VIP
parking.
Click here to read the News of Delaware County coverage.
The eBay auction is over. The winning bid was $5,000 and an additional $5,000 donation was thrown in, with the proceeds going to St. Cyril Save Our School Fund. Thank you to Mitchell Modell, Modell's Sporting Goods, Steve Wolfson, and the Phillies for their generous assistance.
To further support the effort, Modell's sold exclusive "Tommy G, I Believe" t-shirts with 100% of proceeds going towards keeping Saint Cyril of Alexandria school open.
Click
here for KYW3 coverage of the auction and tee shirt sales
Click here for info plus a little history of Tommy's SOS effort from KYW3
From the Daily Times 03-23-2007
From The Philadelphia Inquirer 3-25-07
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From The News Of Delaware County 03-28-07
Tommy Geromichalos received the MICHAEL BRENNAN COURAGE
AWARD from the Boomer Esiason Foundation at their 14th Annual awards ceremony at
the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. The award is for tremendous courage
in achieving his goals despite battling CF. The ceremony was held Saturday,
March 10th.
Click
here for information on the Boomer Esiason Foundation
The readers of The Delaware County Daily Times voted the story of Tommy Geromichalos and his efforts to keep our school open as the top story of the year.
Gil Spencer wrote a nice end of the year article about Tommy and the Save Our School effort in the Daily Times on December 29, 2006.
With the coming of the new year, a number of news articles
have been published about Tommy and the Save Our School effort including a cover
story in Instructor Magazine, a national publication for teachers, and more
articles in the Daily Times.
From the January/February edition of Instructor Magazine:
From the Inquirer 03-01-2007
From the Delaware County Daily Times December 30, 2006:
From the Delaware County Daily Times January 7, 2007:
The Delaware County Daily & Sunday Times ran 9 front pages stories between January 22nd and December 31st.
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"THE CYRIL CONNECTION"
The 7th & 8th grade students, with the help of 8th grade teacher Jeanne
Cashwell, have written their own newsletter for the school.
Click here to read the November 2006 edition of
"The Cyril Connection"
September 6, 2006: The School
officially opened today for the 2006-07 school year. This past January
many of us were worried that the school would not be opening this school
year. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. The news
media was out in full force this morning and there was excitement in the air.
Click here for more pictures of the
day on our picture of the month page.
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Click here to see a CBS3 video from the first day of school
Save Saint Cyril School Fund
P.O. Box 1094
Lansdowne, PA 19050
The winner of the brand New 2005 Dodge Neon SXT from David Dodge was drawn Saturday night June 17th at the annual carnival.
And the winner is:
Martha Burke from Springfield. Congratulations Martha!!
Click here to see pictures from the drawing.
Sports Raffle
The winners of the
Sports Raffle were also drawn at the carnival. The winner of one of
the three prizes is from all the way down in Georgia and found out about the
drawing on the internet
Click here
for more information and pictures of the drawing
Click
here for pictures from the carnival.
CBS National News featured Tommy's Wish on its Assignment America segment on Friday, April 28, 2006. You can see the video on the CBS News website. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/28/assignment_america/main1560919.shtml
Progress as of May 10th
May 10, 2007: To date we have collected over $400,000 from Donations and Fund Raisers. We now have enough to keep the school open for the 2007-2008 school year, (Tommy's graduation year). Now comes the hard part. We hope to continue this effort with an ongoing campaign to keep the school open for many years to come. Hopefully we will see many future generations of Saint Cyril graduates. Donations are starting to come in from our first annual Alumni Fund Raising Drive. If you are an alumnus or friend of the school and have not received a mailing from the Alumni Committee and would like to be added to our mailing list for notice of future events please contact Jim Gray at jeg19026@mail.com or send your name, address and year of graduation or other affiliation to:
St. Cyril Alumni Committee
P.O. Box 1094
Lansdowne, PA 19050
Donation can also be sent to this address
April 6th to 12th: A few additional nice stories have come out this week, including a cover story in the Catholic Standard & Times, and a nice article from the editor of the Delaware County Daily Times.
Catholic Standard & Times April 6, 2006
Delaware County Daily Times April 10, 2006
News Of Delaware County April 12, 2006
March 30, 2006: Cardinal
Rigali announced today, at a special school assembly, that the School will
remain open for 2006-07 school year.
Click
here to see CBS3 video of the Cardinal's announcement
Click
here for an NBC10 video of the Cardinal's announcement and story about the
effort.
Click
here to see NBC10 slideshow
Click here
to read the Cardinal's announcement.
Click here for pictures of the
Cardinal's visit. 
Click here to see our progress
Click
here to see CBS3 video of Tommy's wish and the fund raising efforts
Click
here to see CBS3 video of the Cardinal's announcement or go to
http://cbs3.com/video/?id=24415@kyw.dayport.com
Click
here for an NBC10 video of the Cardinal's announcement and story about the
effort.
Click
here to see NBC10 slideshow or go to:
http://www.nbc10.com/slideshow/news/8369186/detail.html?qs=;s=1;p=news;dm=ss;w=400
Click
here to see 6ABC news coverage or go to:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=4039948
Click
here to see CBS3 video of Tommy's wish and the fund raising efforts or go
to
http://cbs3.com/local/local_story_088171213.html
The press was out in full force at our March
29th meeting to announce the first year fund raising goal had been met. We
thank the press for keeping the story in the public eye and helping us meet our
goal.
Click on a small picture to see a larger version.
Close picture to return to this page.
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Click here for
more pictures from the night.
The Delaware County Daily Times continues to lead the way with news coverage of the SOS efforts. On Wednesday, March 29th they ran their 6th SOS front page story announcing the success of the fund raising efforts. On March 31st the ran their 7th SOS front page story on the Cardinals visit, and the official decision from the Archdiocese.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer March 31, 2006
From The News Of Delaware County March 29, 2006
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The Delaware County Daily Times continues to
lead the way with news coverage of the SOS efforts. On Wednesday, March
29th they ran their 6th front page story announcing the success of the fund
raising efforts. |
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The Delaware County Daily Times and The Philadelphia Daily News Believes In Saint Cyril School The Press continues to give the SOS
effort great coverage. On March 22nd The Delaware County Daily Times
had three articles, and on March 23rd The Philadelphia Daily News had a
nice article and which was also mentioned on the front page. Thank
you to all the newspapers and TV station that helped get the word out. |
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March 11th & 12th: We took part in two St. Patrick's Day Parades over the weekend, along with the David Dodge Neon SXT. On Saturday we marched in the Springfield parade, and on Sunday in the Philadelphia parade. The Philadelphia parade was covered by CBS 3 and we received a nice plug for Tommy's wish and the Save Our School Campaign. |
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David Dodge Believes in Saint Cyril School
CN8 "Your Morning" Believes in Saint Cyril School
On Wednesday, March 1st,
Tommy Geromichalos was seen live on the CN8 "Your Morning" show.
This show is seen in many Northeast markets from Virginia to Maine. The
staff at the "Your Morning" Show also donated two signed Allen Iverson
Jerseys.
Thank You CN8 "Your Morning" Show staff.
Fox 29's "Good Day" Believes in Saint Cyril School
February 24th - Our school Dance-A-Thon was a great success. Fox 29 "Good Day Philadelphia" filmed between 6:30 and 9:00 AM, and the event was also covered by CN8, 6ABC, and of course Linda Reilly of the Delaware County Daily Times. The Phillie Phantic and two of the Sixers Dancers were big hits as well as our dancing faculity. Great fun was had by all, and the effort raised thousands of dollars for the Save Saint Cyril School Fund.
Click here for pictures from the Dance-A-Thon 
CN8 News believes in Saint Cyril School
NBC 10 believes in Saint Cyril School
6 ABC believes in Saint Cyril School
102.9 MGK Classic Rock Believes in Saint Cyril School
92.5 XTU Philadelphia's Country Station Believes in Saint Cyril School
Thank you to the Delaware
County Daily Times and The News of Delaware County for their
coverage of our fundraisers.
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The News Of Delaware County Believes In Saint Cyril School March 15, 2006: The News Of Delaware County Boroughs Edition featured our story on their front page, and they also printed the first editorial cartoon about the SOS efforts. |
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The Delaware County Daily Times Believes In Saint Cyril School March 10, 2006: The Delaware County Daily Times had another cover story about the progress of the SOS efforts. March 15, 2006: The Delaware County Daily Times again gives an update on the SOS efforts. |
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Click here to see coverage of the Dance-A-Thon and the Cut-A-Thon from The Daily Times |
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Gil Spencer Believes in Saint Cyril School
March 1, 2006: Gil Spencer writes about his
visit to Saint Cyril School and his latest thoughts about Tommy's wish and
the SOS effort. |
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The News Of Delaware County Believes in Saint Cyril School March 8, 2006: The News of Delaware County wrote an editorial asking people around the county to consider supporting any one of the many SOS fundraisers. |
Click
here to see coverage of our fundraisers from the Delaware County Daily Times February 24, 2006
Click
here to see coverage of fundraisers from the Delaware County Daily Times February 6, 2006
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Click here to see coverage of our fundraisers from The News of Delaware County February 8, 2006 |
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February 19, 2006: The Philadelphia Inquirer
wrote about Tommy's Wish and our efforts in their Neighbors section, and
David Dodge took out a full page ad in the Delaware County Sunday
Times to tell our story and keep the wish alive. |
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More Headlines starting with the January 22 edition of the Delaware County Sunday Times.
Click here to read Tommy's Wish or go to www.saintcyril.org/tommyswish.htm
To read Gil Spencer 01-22-06 article on the Daily Times Web
Site click
here or go to
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15976908&BRD=1675&PAG=461&dept_id=18168&rfi=6
To read the article from a scanned copy click picture or click
here or go to
www.saintcyril.org/times1.htm
To see front page of the Sunday Daily Times click here
or go to
www.saintcyril.org/times.htm
To read the Editorial "Tommy's saintly wish" from
January 24, 2006 on the Daily Times Web Site click
here or go to
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15986559&BRD=1675&PAG=461&dept_id=18168&rfi=6
To read the article from a scanned copy click picture or click
here or go to:
www.saintcyril.org/times2.htm
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The press continues to champion the cause of Tommy Geromichalos's unselfish wish, and this gives hope to and inspires the many others who share his wish. |  |
To see above newspaper cover pages and read an article on our
effort click here or go to:
www.saintcyril.org/times3.htm
February 2, 2006: The story of Tommy's wish and our efforts has spread to the Daily News, and there have been updates on NBC10 and CN8. Thank you to all those who are helping to get the story out, and to all those that have helped us in our efforts.
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Click here to read the article from The Philadelphia Daily News. |
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February 13, 2006: Cardinal Justin Rigali has accepted the major recommendations of the Cluster 63 Steering Committee. Saint Cyril School was given time to meet its fundraising goals. Unfortunately our neighbor Saint Alice School will close after this school year. |
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To see above newspaper cover page, read an article on the decision and read information from the archdiocese click here or go to: www.saintcyril.org/decision.htm
Many great stories of kindness and generosity
have come to light during the effort to save St. Cyril School. Starting
with the wish of Tommy Geromichalos, these good deeds have continued and
multiplied. We want to capture and record as many of these stories as we
can. We hope to use some of these stories in future newsletters and on our
web site. If you have an inspirational story about the effort to save
Saint Cyril School that you can share with us, and allow us to share with
others, we would love to hear it. Don't worry about spelling or grammar;
we can proof read it before it gets printed.
Click
here for more information and to submit your story.
