Cheers of ‘OPA’ could be heard echoing across the Queensland town of Toowoomba on Saturday, September 17 as the local Greek community marched in the iconic Grand Central Floral Parade for the first time in over 30 years.
The parade was part of the month-long Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers and saw the streets of the Garden City filled with roughly 20 brightly coloured floats.
The Greek Community of Toowoomba’s float was one of the brightest on the day, decorated with blue and white flags, as well as an assortment of orange, purple and white flowers.
About 20 people from Toowoomba’s Greek community, ranging in age from 7 months old to over 60, participated in the Floral Parade dressed proudly in traditional Greek dancing costumes.
The driver of the float on the day, Helen Levonis, told The Greek Herald it was fantastic to be back in the parade after 30 years thanks to an “injection” of young people in the Greek community spearheading the initiative.
“We’re really proud,” Ms Levonis, who is also a committee member of the Greek Community of Toowoomba, said.
“I was on one of those floats back in the day… and this time I drove but you know, we had members who were older than me dancing all the way. We had such a good response.
“People from the crowd were calling out ‘OPA’ and the look of the men and women in costume was wonderful and even the kids enjoyed it.”
According to the Toowoomba Regional Council Environment and Community Committee chair, Councillor James O’Shea, an estimated 60,000 people were in the city on Saturday to watch the spectacle.
Ms Levonis said it was great to see large groups of people flocking to their float to get a taste of Greek culture and heritage.
“We had people who came up from Brisbane to Toowoomba for the festival and they came and said hello. I’m talking about not just Greek Australians that we knew, but we also had a Turkish family come up to us and said hi. That was really nice,” she concluded.
“So I’m very grateful for the people that came and enjoyed participating. Not all of our community are Greek origin and we’re okay with that because we live in Australia and we’re multicultural.”
