LOS ANGELES - 9/25/2009

On Friday, September 18, 2009, American Hellenic Council Board member and former President Dr. Nicolaos Alexopoulos (who is currently on a sabbatical in Greece) visited together with his wife Sue the town of Kalyvia outside Athens.

The purpose of the visit was to meet with the recipients of the funds raised by the American Hellenic Council Charitable Foundation in late 2007 and early 2008 (while Dr. Alexopoulos was President of AHC) for the purpose of reforestation in response to the fires that plagued most of Greece in August and September of 2007.

At that time, through the generous contributions of its own members and the Greek-American Community as a whole, the American Hellenic Council was able to raise over $45,000 towards the reforestation effort. The drive was under the umbrella of a larger effort organized by an organization called Plant Your Roots in Greece that operates under the auspices of SAE USA and its President Ted Spyropoulos.

Mayor Petros Filippou of the town of Kalyvia outside Athens showing Dr. Alexopoulos and his wife Sue a recently planted pine tree.

Dr. Alexopoulos and his wife met with the mayor of Kalyvia, Mr. Petros Filippou at city hall. Mr. Filippou took his visitors on a tour around Panion mountain in the outskirts of Athens and showed them vast areas of planned reforestation.

As Dr. Alexopoulos stated: "We were most impressed with the well organized activities to replant the area. So far they have planted 25,000 trees and they will plant another 8,000. They have placed strategically huge water containers all over the hills to water each planted tree. They are planting a variety of "fire resistant"trees, not only pine trees."

After the tour of the area, Mr. Filippou and his guests went back to city hall where he showed the Alexopoulos couple a video of all the reforestation efforts that the AHC members helped finance from beginning to end. The video featured weddings, baptisms and birthdays organized around the replanting effort. Instead of a typical party that include eating and dancing, these events would focus on going out and planting trees. In fact, Mr. Filippou son's 19th birthday was one of these events.

At the backdrop of the recent wildfires that destroyed massive areas of forests in Greece again this summer, Dr. Alexopoulos and his wife were very impressed with their visit. It's sometimes hard to find the right person to do the right job in the Greek political arena but our former President and his wife were reassured not only from Mayor Filippou but also from their own eyes and areas that our fundraising efforts and the contributions by the members of our community are very well spent.

Copyright - AHC 2009
For more information please contact: American Hellenic Council Director: Alexander Mizan 323-651-3507

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