A Message from the President – July 2017

Dear friends,

Every year this season, we bid all our beloved students farewell for their summer holidays.

Our HCGM “École Socrates-Démosthène” graduates will go on to High school, embarking on a journey where they will meet new challenges and embrace different learning experiences.

Statistics have shown that the “École Socrates-Démosthène” graduates have developed skills that enable them to excel academically, as well as, in their future professional endeavors, in Canada’s multicultural society. These same graduates will be the new guardians of our language, our faith and our culture.

Working with children requires patience, compassion, adoptability and above all, a love for teaching and the desire to see each child reach their full potential. At the HCGM, we are truly blessed to have such teaching staff. The result is 153 proud 2017 graduates to whom I express my sincere congratulations.

I also extend the same gratitude to the teachers and Director of our Supplementary Education for their excellent work in teaching the Greek language to our students on Saturdays.

Towards the end of June, 22 students of the HCGM “Socrates-Démosthène” School, accompanied by Campus III principal, Christos Filandrianos and teacher Nelly Vlahandreas, visited Greece. Our children embraced their heritage, learned a lot about the land of their ancestors and enjoyed their vacations in the land of the light, Hellas. We are overjoyed from their feedback and we are eager to offer this trip next year with even more participants.

On June 30th, the unveiling ceremony of the Sculpture of the Greek immigrant was held at the junction of Parc Avenue and Jean Talon in Parc-Extension, where Dennis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, received the present of the Hellenic Community to the city of Montreal, for its 375 anniversary. The sculpture will stand there to remind us the importance of the Greek presence to the city’s history.

In closing, I express my gratitude to our volunteers, our staff, our sponsors and all of those who supported and worked tirelessly to organise the two HCGM Summer Festivals, on the South Shore and in Laval, both of which were huge successes.

I wish you all a wonderful summer!

Nicholas T. Pagonis

President