The HCGM South Shore Panigri Goes VIRTUAL!

For 38 years, the St-Jean Baptiste Greek Festival on the South Shore of Montreal has been the Hellenic Community of Greater Montreal’s “kick-off to summer” event. Anyone that has been to this festival has no doubt felt the warmth, contagious enthusiasm and great spirit of collaboration that goes into this event.

It’s hard to imagine summer without it, but what if we didn’t have to?

While businesses are slowly starting to reopen, social distance restrictions regarding COVID-19 continue to remain firmly in place. While so many things have changed, one constant that remains is that we must continue to maintain our community centers, our schools, and our churches today and for generations to come. COVID or not, these needs continue to exist.

With that in mind, we challenged ourselves to find a way to raise money for our community in a way that brings us all together, even if restrictions force us to keep apart. And so, the idea of a virtual festival came to life! Over the course of 6 days, we will bring the St. Jean Festival straight to YOUR doorstep.

From June 23 to 28, from the safety of our homes, we will have the opportunity to:

Share our love of music, dancing, faith, friendships, and sense of family that is so unique to the St-Jean Baptiste Greek Festival. Through the HCGM Facebook and YouTube pages, we will engage local bands to play online, live stream the church services (vespers and divine liturgy) and we will reminisce with pictures and videos of past festivals.

Show our support for all the past sponsors of this Festival who are suffering economically through this pandemic. One of our key objectives during this virtual festival is to promote all the local businesses that have encouraged us in the past and to ask the public to order food or buy whatever goods or services they offer. Help us help them!