AHEPA delegates and members of the Daughters of Penelope opened Supreme Convention week Sunday morning with a fundraising walk along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, traveling from the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The July 26 walk was organized by AHEPA Hercules-Spartan Chapter 26 of Greater Philadelphia and Daughters of Penelope Tritonia Chapter 129. Participants set out at 8 a.m. The walk was the first event listed on the official program for AHEPA’s 104th Annual Supreme Convention.
Before the group left the hotel, AHEPA Power District 4 Governor Timothy Vlassopoulos presented Supreme President E. Chris Kaitson with a donation check for the AHEPA Cooley’s Anemia Foundation.
Cooley’s anemia is another name for beta thalassemia major, an inherited blood disorder in which the body does not produce enough hemoglobin.
Wearing matching light-blue shirts, participants headed west along the Parkway. The group paused for photographs beneath the Greek and Cypriot flags before continuing past the Rodin Museum toward the Art Museum.
Near the museum, Daughters of Penelope District 4 Governor Georgia Chletcos and AHEPA Past Supreme President George G. Horiates spoke about Philadelphia’s Charioteer of Delphi and its place in the city’s Greek-American history.
The bronze is a 1977 cast of the fifth-century BCE sculpture preserved at Delphi. Greek artists Nikos Kerlis and Theodora Papayannis produced the Philadelphia version using the lost-wax process. The Greek government presented it to the city in connection with the American Bicentennial.
The inscription at its base links “the cradle of democracy in the ancient world” with “the cradle of democracy in the new world” and identifies the monument as a gift from the people of Greece to the people of America. It is dated July 4, 1977.
From the Charioteer, the walkers continued to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where they posed on the steps and beside the Rocky statue. The final group image shows participants raising their arms with the museum behind them.
The AHEPA Family Supreme Convention continues in Philadelphia through Saturday, August 1, with business sessions, cultural programs, receptions and the installation of the organization’s new officers.
Photos by Eleftherios Kostans