Upper Darby, PA – The Greek American Heritage Society of Philadelphia hosted it’s first meeting of the new season at the Pontian Leski this past Monday evening. With many new faces, a host of ideas, challenges and goals, the gathering showed much promise.
After dinner the members reviewed the finances of the Society, met members, and the evening was highlighted by a presentation and discussion of long and short term endeavors that were currently being developed. They included a photo contest, accumulating and safeguarding the Greek community’s historical data, funding documentary films, and various ways to promote the Society.
Recently, the Society launched the first ever “Love Your Yiayia Papou” Photo contest. The contest is being promoted and hosted on the internet as a way to reconnect the Greek community of Philadelphia and promote Hellenism. The contest will feature the submissions on the World Wide Web. It is being promoted as a way to share our culture and the Society will award prizes for best submission. The contest is open to anyone who is Greek or of Greek descent.
In addition, the Society has been accumulating historical materials, including photographs, books, documents and music, with an eventual goal to house and feature the Greek American community of Philadelphia. Recently, the “Vlassopoulos Music Archives” and now the “Greek American Historical Society” archives have been attained by the Society. The Society is looking for families, individuals and organizations who would like to donate their historical archives to the organization as a way to tell the story of our Greek community.
The Society has also partnered with Cosmos Philly to create a series of documentary interviews in a continuing effort to record the history of the Greek-American community. Those films will be housed on both the Society’s and Cosmos Philly’s websites. The films will feature interviews with members of the community and organizations, whose stories need to be documented for future generations, and will be part of a digital online library.
Mary Creticos of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, whose generous donation initiated the organization and whose long-term vision is to establish a museum or Greek culture center in the metropolitan Philadelphia area founded the organization. The Society is a non-profit philanthropic organization and hosts meeting monthly that are open to the public. They encourage those individuals interested in promoting, sharing, and being involved with Hellenism to attend.
For more information about the Society, you can visit them online at gahsp.org or watch their promotional video Partnering for our Future that was created in conjunction with Cosmos Philly.