Last night we went to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral Greek Festival. Man, you talk about knowing how to do a fund raiser, it was phenomenal. Here were just a few of the things that impressed me:
- It is held on 4 successive nights
- Lights were strung up outside attracting people like moths
- A pared down menu that included quality items with lots of meat cooking and the wonderful smells drifting through the air
- Big open-air white tents set up
- Big, portable see-through fencing set up close to the street so that you could see through and get activities closer to the traffic to attract people
- Select beers and wines (I've seen Methodist Churches in Iowa with beer at their church--but it was like one of those under the counter operations)
- Dancing
- Live shows with lots of people
- $5 entrance fee (they could have doubled that and I still would have gone)
- Quality, select, vendors
- They had to have made easily hundreds of thousands of dollars
I'll bet we spent over 2 hours there, and they got at least $70 out of us. On top of that it was absolutely an impulse decision for us to go. We were going to stay home and eat, but I had had my car in the J & T Automotive, and I gather that the people who run this place are Greek (the front desk woman's name means "wisdom" in Greek, the General Manager's last name means "God is with us" in the Greek form of the Hebrew, etc.) Anyway, as I was peeling off the bills to pay for my car repairs, the young man said he couldn't wait to go to the Greek celebration.
I said, "What celebration?"
"It's like a festival."
"Where?"
"On Yoakum Street."
"Where is that?"
"It's a little difficult to explain."
"Yeah? Well try."
Blank look.
"Is it connected with a church?
"Yes!"
"Which one?"
His mind was whirring, and then he blurted out, "Annunciation!"
"They're having it tonight?"
"Yes!"
I thought, Well that sounds like fun . . . but . . . I'll need to check in with the War Dept. first though to see if that is a possibility.