CRETE Magazines October 2013 | Page 17

Clothing Drive For the Cretan Orphanage Yours sincerely, Xanthippi Gelasakis PAA West Coast Youth Supervisor Vice President World Council of Cretans 1 3 2 2. Maria Stratoudakis socializes with the locals. 3. (Left to right) Xanthippi Gelasakis, Maria Stratoudakis, young man from village, and Nick Stratoudakis. KPI-KPI This year the PYA began a clothing drive to collect clothes for the less fortunate children in Kphth for the 'KENTRO APOKATASTASHS ATOMWN ME EIDIKEZ ANAGKEZ', in Chania. This program targets boys and young men with special needs, home needs and orphans. In less than four months with help from our youth and adults of the PAA chapters we collected three large containers full of clothes. The Manos family opened their home and allowed us to ship and deliver all the clothes to their residence. The containers where shipped by Kphth with Kronos International Shippers. Mr. Nick Mourikies took full responsibility and donated the cost of shipment. A plaque was award to him during the PAA National Convention this summer. The containers arrived in Piraeus in the beginning of August then forwarded to Kphth. The containers where shipped to Kamboi, Chania, the home of Xanthippi Gelasakis. With help from Maria and Nick Stratoudakis and the local children from the village, we were able to sort through all the items. Sorting through the clothes took many days because there were several items shipped that were not children's clothing. Those items were donated to a few different churches. Little girls clothing was also distributed to villages for those less fortunate. Throughout the last few years I have had the pleasure of working with Mihali Kondastakis, a volunteer for the orphanage for many years. With his help we gave the children the clothes on August 14. A friend from the xorio was kind enough to volunteer his time and help us load, unload, and deliver the container. Look at the pictures and you can see the children’s excitement. Shortly afterwards the younger kids started looking through the clothes and taking what they liked. I look forward to sharing our upcoming projects, which will take place in Kphth next summer and here in the United States. Details will be in the upcoming issues from Matthaio Daoutis, our newly elected PYA Philanthropic Chair, and me. Thank you to the youth and the adults who took the time to represent the PYA and PAA in this wonderful philanthropic effort to make a difference. 1. Group photo at the orphanage. Front: Xanthippi Gelasakis, Amalia Mbasia Theodorakis, Maria Stratoudakis and Nick Stratoudakis Back: Mihalis Kondastakis. 4 4. Delighted children from the orphanage help unload the clothes. KPHTH KPHTH | WWW.PANCRETAN.ORG | WWW.PANCRETANYouth.ORG 17