ABOUT US

George Papaspyros
Chairman, Greek Summer Festival

Since the inception of the festival, George has devoted endless hours to make this 10 day festival a success. George is a true hard worker who has been devoted to making this festival all that it can be, and helped it move from a weekend festival to the 10 day calibration that it is today. George has also helped other sister communities design and plan and execute their own festivals. To name a few is the Greek Orthodox Church of the Saviour on Vancouver Island, and he has also contributed to the Greek food festival in Surrey at Saint Helen’s and Constantine Church to help them with their building fund.

Greek Summer Festival Working Committee:

Angelopoulos, Eleni
Charalambous, Kika
Georgalis, Mike
Karakas, Andreas
Kontogiannis, Nikolaos
Mentacos, Demetre
Nivolianitis, Dimitrios
Panagiotou, Andrew
Papapanagiotou, Ben
Papapanagiotou, Soula
Papathopoulos, Denise
Patseas, Demetre
Procopiou, Andreas
Tsembelis, Helen
Tsopeis, Demetri
Tsoukalas, Alex
Walters, Jason

THE FESTIVAL'S HISTORY

The Vancouver Greek Summer Festival is an annual celebration of food, entertainment, and family fun -- from the famous "Roast Lamb" and "Loukoumades" (a specialty Greek dessert) to the dozens of live singers and dancers on the Performance Stage to face-painting for the children (and adults!).

The first Greek Summer Festival was held in 1987 as a small weekend event, attended mostly by members of the St. Nicholas & Dimitrios Church as a fundraiser for the church. Since then, the festival (now simply known as "Greek Fest") has grown to 10 days over two weekends, encompassing the Canada Day Holiday. It is now attended by almost 40,000 people from all areas of the culturally diverse Lower Mainland, as well as many visitors from around the world.

Greek Fest has always been free to attend and is run entirely by volunteers. All proceeds go back to the community, whether to finish the church or to various charities and community organizations. In the past, Greek Fest has supported St. John Ambulance, Collingwood Neighborhood House, BC Children's Hospital, and the Vancouver Fire Fighters Burn Fund and the Make-A-Wish Foundation of BC and Yukon.

To help serve the members of the community better, the St. Nicholas & Dimitrios Church will be starting a multi-year, multi-million dollar project to build a Community Centre. This Community Centre will be home to a Greek Orthodox School, and will also include a gymnasium and meeting rooms for various after-school and sports activities and programs open to everyone.

Proceeds from Greek Fest over the next few years will be instrumental in bringing this project to fruition.

Join us from June 29th to July 11th 2010 to Live a Day the Greek Way!