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Rev. Michael Platanis of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and Niki Stewart, Head General Chair of the 32nd Annual Greek Festival, oversee the set-up and preparations of the festival. Stewart says she and her team handle \u201ceverything from the first knife and spoon to the last piece of meat.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church has hosted their Annual Greek Festival for the past 32 years. As part of the festivities, the church offers tours to see this unique cathedral.<\/p>\n
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Michael Jordan, a Whaley Food Services employee, sets up a grill for the 32nd Annual Greek Festival that begins Thursday. Set-up of tents and booths have begun at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n
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Tents at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church sit empty, awaiting the 26 vendors that will take over this weekend for the 32nd Annual Greek Festival. Vendors bring a variety of goods, including food, jewelry, and clothing, to the church parking lot for this 4 day event.<\/p>\n
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For one weekend a year, everyone is Greek at the Columbia Greek Festival, as revelers enjoy food, dance and fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":11831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"
Niki Stewart and her crew spent their day making over 10,000 dolmades: meat and rice wrapped in baked grape leaves, topped with a \u201cdelicious\u201d lemon sauce.<\/p>
Stewart, the head general chair for Columbia\u2019s annual Greek festival, was hustling with other members of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church to gear up for the event.<\/p>
The festival only lasts for a few days every year, but church folks like Stewart spend much more time gearing up for it.<\/p>
\u201cThey marinated 6,000 chickens this morning,\u201d Stewart said on Tuesday.<\/p>
That chicken, which comes out to about 6,800 pounds, along with 950 pounds of shrimp, is just a start, she said.<\/p>
Workers from Whaley Food Service and Lakeshow Electrical Service worked diligently on Tuesday in the heat of the church parking lot, setting up tents and grills for the festival, which will begin on Thursday.<\/p>
The event has grown significantly in its 32 years.<\/p>
\u201cWhen I first started doing the festival we had one little, tiny half of a freezer truck we used to rent from Coca-Cola to put some of the products on,\u201d Stewart said, \u201cand now I have seven big rigs all the way around the block.\u201d<\/p>
Next to the main church building is a smaller building with a kitchen to prepare the weekend\u2019s lunches and dinners, and a gym decked out with tables, chairs and booths for Greek pastries.<\/p>
Through the gym and back out into the lot, there will be at least 25 vendors from outside the church selling items like traditional Greek clothes and jewelry.<\/p>
One of the vendors, Maria Charalambides, walked into the church on Tuesday with her husband so they could get started setting up \u201cMaria\u2019s Jewelry.\u201d<\/p>
Charalambides said she is probably going to be the only vendor that will be inside instead of out in the lot, but she might have earned that right.<\/p>
\u201cI think I [am] the original vendor \u2026 for this festival, ever since they started,\u201d she said.<\/p>
Steve Bitzas, the festival set-up coordinator, sat at a table in the gym for a short break from his work building the taverna and beverage areas and Greek grocery station.<\/p>
\u201cYou need to come when it\u2019s cranked up,\u201d Bitzas said. \u201cIt\u2019s like sardines in here.\u201d<\/p>
Aside from the food, those who work to make the Greek Festival happen aim to bring people together in a cultural embrace\u2014it\u2019s about being \u201cGreek for a week.\u201d<\/p>
That\u2019s more than just a rhyme to the Rev. Michael Platanis.<\/p>
\u201cI think the important thing is not only to be Greek for a week, but to be Greek forever \u2026 In order to be Greek, there is only one thing to do, and that is to love what is Greek,\u201d Platanis said, citing an ancient Greek politician.<\/p>
Platanis stood in the church\u2019s sanctuary as a professor from Greece and a team of iconographers quietly painted religious art on the walls and the dome.<\/p>
He reflected on the history of the church and the Greek Orthodox culture, and he decided that \u201cGreek\u201d is more a culture of hospitality than a race of people.<\/p>
The festival becomes a reflection of that idea as it welcomes people to take part in a way of life.<\/p>
\u201cPhilo xenia,\u201d Platanis said. \u201cIt means, literally, \u2018friend of the foreigner [or] friend of the stranger.\u2019\u201d<\/p>
About 11,000 strangers came to see the church and the sanctuary\u2019s artwork when it was first started about six years ago, Platanis said, many of them even skipping out on the festival\u2019s food and music to do so.<\/p>
This year\u2019s event is going to include self-guided tours of the cathedral, as well as a history lesson courtesy of a Greco-Persian wars battle reenactment.<\/p>
The church typically donates much of the festival\u2019s proceeds to charities and non-profits such as the American Red Cross, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and summer camps for children undergoing chemotherapy, Platanis said.<\/p>
Stewart is also in charge of getting sponsors for the festival, which she says takes all year.<\/p>
The work put into the festival, Platanis hopes, will simply result in a weekend of peace.<\/p>
\u201cTo create a place \u2026 where someone\u2019s not looking over their shoulder, where someone is not thinking ill, where someone is simply satisfied in such a way that they\u2019re not worried or scared or wanting something more,\u201d Platanis said, \u201cthat\u2019s a unique thing about the festival.\u201d<\/p>
The parking lot was still sort of bare, with no discernable theme. There was no food to be eaten yet, and no music to be heard.<\/p>
But Sidney Smith continued to help set up tents and electrical equipment, looking to the near future with excitement.<\/p>
\u201cIt ain\u2019t gonna look nothing like this,\u201d Smith said. \u201cCome at nighttime, when all the lights be on \u2026 It\u2019s really nice.\u201d<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[42,39],"tags":[96,169,168,134,167,136],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11756"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12025,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11756\/revisions\/12025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}