More than 130 members of South Australia’s Cretan and the broader community gathered on Saturday evening, at the Cretan House in Alberton, Adelaide, to raise much needed funds for the Association and celebrate their homeland with music, dances and local delicacies prepared by dedicated volunteers.
“Our ‘Taverna Night’ is more of a fundraiser. It’s been 1,5 years since our last event because of COVID and it’s really exciting to have a full house today,” Cretan Association of SA President, Pantelis Fridakis told The Greek Herald.
Fridakis said that apart from keeping the Cretan tradition alive, events like these are also an opportunity to better engage the association’s youth with their heritage.
“We aspire to keep our tradition and our culture alive and share that with the next generation. The most important thing is to keep the door open for the youth,” he said.
“The Association has been making an effort for many years, to keep Cretans in South Australia connected. The old generation is ageing and we know there might be people of Cretan heritage in the community who might now know about us,” said former President, Stamatis Borakis.
“It’s important to remember who we are and where we come from,” he said.
The Association holds Cretan dance classes every Wednesday and their next event, the annual Battle of Crete dinner dance, will take place on June 5, 2021.
