AHEPA e-News! - Vol. 09 Issue 48 - Wednesday, December 2, 2015

A happy family receives Toy for Tots thanks to Delphi Chapter 25, Manhattan, N.Y.

AHEPA Happenings | Chapters Give Back at Thanksgiving
Chapters throughout the AHEPA domain were visible and active in their
Chapter 103 brothers serve Thanksgiving meals to the community.
respective communities at Thanksgiving.  Delphi Chapter 25, Manhattan, N.Y. partnered with The Bowery Mission on Thanksgiving to distribute Toys for Tots.  

In Weirton, W.V., Hancock Chapter 103 prepared and served its annual Thanksgiving meal to the community.  The brothers of Chapter 103 also presented a donation to Supreme Secretary George E. Loucas for the AHEPA-St. Nicholas Capital Campaign Drive to help #rebuildStNicholas.

"AHEPA has a 93-year history of service to the community," Supreme President John Galanis said. "We are proud of the service and outreach these chapters, and all our chapters, are providing to their communities and to those in need throughout the world."
WASHINGTON UPDATE

President Signs Defense Bill into Law; Contains Provision on U.S.-Cyprus Security Relationship
President Barack Obama signed the 2016 National Defense
Chairman Karacostas and Executive Director Mossaidis with Armed Services Chairman Sen. John McCain
Authorization Act into law, Nov. 25, 2015.  The bill contains a provision (Section 1276) that authorizes a report to be issued on the security relationship between the U.S. and the Republic of Cyprus.  The report's content is to include,among other elements, an analysis of the impact of U.S. policy to impose an arms embargo upon Cyprus to the security relationship between the two nations.

"We welcome this assessment of the security relationship between two strong allies, the United States and the Republic of Cyprus," Supreme President John W. Galanis said. "We sincerely thank Congressmen Gus Bilirakis and David Cicilline for authorizing the provision, and we thank the congressional conferees who kept the provision in the bill during deliberations to hammer out a final bill." 

In July, AHEPA outreached to Capitol Hill in support of the provision through congressional meetings and a letter from Supreme President John Galanis to key members of the Armed Services Committees.

White House Strengthens Visa Waiver Program Following Paris Attacks  NBC News (Nov. 30) The White House on Monday announced changes to a U.S. visa waiver program aimed at more tightly screening travelers from 38 nations not required to get visas before traveling to the United States.  Read more 


Hellenic Caucus Membership at 131. Help It Grow.













ACTION ITEM: Help Us Grow the Hellenic Caucus!
AHEPA asks that you help us to grow the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues.  The Hellenic Caucus has been an active, bipartisan group in Congress since its founding in 1995.  It is co-chaired by U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
  
Membership in the Hellenic Caucus stands at 131.
REBUILD SAINT NICHOLAS SHRINE CAMPAIGN


 
THANK YOU!

Ahepans tour the Saint Nicholas construction site.

AHEPA is determined to meet its Saint Nicholas Capital Campaign fund raising goal. The administrative year is well underway and we are already beginning to see donations being presented for AHEPA's #RebuildStNicholas capital campaign.  

We thank Gus Cherevas Estia-Pindus Chapter 326, Flushing, N.Y., Rose of New England Chapter 110, Norwich, Conn., and SOP Chapter 293, Bayside, N.Y., among other chapters that have recently donated to our campaign drive.

Our #RebuildStNicholas campaign webpage has been updated to reflect the many generous donations we received over the summer.

TAKE ACTION

Has your district or chapter organized a fundraiser for the campaign to #RebuildStNicholas?  Take action and support AHEPA's campaign today! Please tweet about your fundraising activity by using #RebuildStNicholas to share your work with the broader community!

NEXT DAY OF ACTION

Sunday, Dec. 6 | Feast Day of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker

PROJECT UPDATE

Thanks to a live webcam, you can watch progress being made with a first-hand look at the site where Saint Nicholas National Shrine will be build.
The Ahepan

The fall issue of The Ahepan is out! Share it with family and friends by forwarding along this electronic version.  Recap the Supreme Convention and catch the latest on how AHEPA chapters give back to the community.

Click on the magazine icon to check it out!

Spring 2016 Deadline: February 1
The Periclean

Keep up to date with AHEPA's Junior Order, the Sons of Pericles. 
  • Catch this month's issue of The Periclean HERE
Upcoming Events

December
5 - Supreme President visit Evzone AHEPA Chapter Initiation/Installation, West Chester, N.Y.
12 - Supreme President visits St. Basil Academy for Christmas Party
13 - Supreme President visits Archangel Michael event in Port Washington, N.Y.

January
6 - Epiphany Celebrations, Tarpon Springs, Fla.

March
13-19 - Joint Reunion Golf Event, Orlando, FL
Greek American  
News Digest


Regulating Flow of Refugees Gains Urgency in Greece and Rest of Europe  The New York Times (Nov. 25)  Mytilene, Greece -- On a recent day here on the Greek island of Lesbos, hundreds of asylum seekers squatted on ragged hillsides or rested in a warren of tentlike structures, clothes drying on leafless trees, as they waited to be registered and sent by ferry to the European mainland.  Read more


Angelos Tzortzinis: TIME Picks the Best Wire Photographer of 2015  TIME (Nov. 30) Wire photographers are at the forefront of the news. They're the first ones on the scene, ready to drop everything in an instant when news breaks. When eight men unleashed a series of deadly terror attacks on Paris in the late hours of Nov. 13, the photographers working for Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters, among other wire services, sprang into action without hesitation.  Read more

The $400 billion ripoff that could destroy the Greek bailout  
CNBC (Nov. 24) As if Greece didn't have enough economic market woes, last week foreign investment funds managed to take control of four of the country's largest banks - Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank - through $6.42 billion worth of capital increases and a complex set of legal manipulations. As a result, bank shares sold like penny stocks, diluting state ownership in these important institutions that have assets totaling $358 billion.  Read more
 
Opinion/Commentary: Saga of Greece's debt crises spans two centuries  Ekathimerini (Nov. 26)  A recent paper presented by Carmen M. Reinhart of Harvard University and Christoph Trebesch of the University of Munich focuses on the telling similarities between the current Greek debt crisis and three former instances of state bankruptcy in the country's modern history.  Presented in mid-September at the Brookings Institution in the United States, the paper by the two economists argues that the present crisis, like the others that came before it, are essentially crises of foreign indebtedness and not simply of fiscal derailment.  Read more

Why Greeks are exhuming their parents  BBC Magazine (Nov. 26) Cemeteries in Greek cities are so overcrowded that bodies are often only kept in the ground for three years. Then families have to pay for exhumation - and for the bones to be kept in a building known as an ossuary. But many cannot afford to pay even for this limited degree of dignity in death.  Read more
 

Raleigh's Greek legacy: Little eateries that made it   
The News & Observer (Nov. 28) Ernest Charles stands in the back parking lot of Roast Grill and laments that it isn't fig season. "Otherwise I'd give you the most delicious, most red fig you've ever seen from that tree right over there."  We walk over to a small, fenced-in patio behind the building. The tree, he says, was planted from seeds that came from his parents' native Greece at least 75 years ago, poised to shade the bedrooms above the restaurant.  Read more




 
 
 
This is an electronic news service of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association.
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