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​The biggest thank you goes out to everyone who helped with the preparations and everyone who came on the day and supported our annual Paniyiri Greek Food Festival 2019! This was our biggest and most successful Paniyiri Greek Food Festival to date and its success was not possible without all of our incredible helpers.

Every year we are blessed with the help of volunteers from our community.
John Callinicos, along with Fofi Zivadinovic must be acknowledged for their commitment, selfless dedication and hard work for our community. Fofi was able to bring together her dream team of not so young Grandmothers who are all experts in their fields of baking and cooking and this dedicated group would come in every day to cook and bake amazing delicacies. Also, Chrisanthi Kamberogiannis and Neove ​​Christoforou must also be acknowledged for their ongoing hard work, their knowledge and efforts in knowing what our community needs to function successfully. Every night, a different younger group organised by Chrisanthi and Neove would come in and start the next shift of cooking and organising the logistics of this event. A massive thank you to everyone else who supported these teams; your help is invaluable and very much appreciated. A big thank you also goes out to our entertainers, Anamnisi Band, The Greek Band and Makaronia Me Kima; your performances add so much kefi to the day.

All of these preparations not only give you a chance to be part of a wider team, but they also allow you to connect with other community members, get some hands-on experience from some of the best chefs in the community, learn some of the best-kept secrets behind some of our Greek recipes and share your best cooking secrets also. We encourage each and every one of you to get involved next year!

The thing we are most proud of was not just the financial success of this event, but the coming together of our community. The Paniyiri Greek Food Festival is the one day of the year that all our Somatia and Brotherhoods unite and work towards the same common goal and this coming together is what enables us to pull off such a huge project with maximum success.

The annual Paniyiri Greek Food Festival started as a small event in 1977 and has been taking place every February ever since. Members of the Greek community decided that sharing the food of Greece was the best way to share their traditions and culture with the wider public. Nowadays, the Paniyiri Greek Food Festival welcomes approximately 10,000 people every year and encapsulates the traditions of the 13 distinct associations within the Greek Orthodox Community of Wellington.