I want to thank everyone for an outstanding job done on our food festival this year.  The 2015 Food Festival at St. John brought the community together in many ways.  All the volunteers involved with the months of food preparation, to the day of volunteers, saw the fruits of their labor enjoyed both by our parishioners and the community at large.  Friends, relatives, neighbors all came and enjoyed a day full of camaraderie.  Father Mesrop had a wonderful message that he shared with all explaining:  2015 marked the centennial for the Armenian genocide and the food festival was a reminder to all of us for all of our forefathers who had endured the past and had the courage to restart their lives with building new churches and schools and communities and passing the old traditions on to the next generations for us to cherish and keep.

Again, with delight, I thank everyone for coming together and doing so much to ensure that this year as every other year we continue to have a successful food festival.  Numerous committees were at work.  Many many hours were spent planning and preparing for this year one day event which was also different this year compared to previous years.  The participation was outstanding from all the committees.  Special thanks goes to the Ladies Society headed by Christina Ardemis, Linda Lester and their team of wonderful volunteers who did all the cooking for months in advance.  Many  thanks for the Triple X Golden Gate Chapter members who participated in all the barbeque work and the many extra hands helping Ed Barber and Richard Surabian with the meat preparation.  Both the luleh kabob and shish kabob were DELICIOUS.  Special thanks to our Jr. and Sr. ACYO members for their help and presence at the buffet, serving drinks, cashiering and busing tables.  It is so great to see their participation with this community wide activity on a volunteer level.  Keep it up. 

The evening’s entertainment began with the Karoun Dance Ensemble. Thank you Carol Kazarian for working with our youth to perform with the dance ensemble. It looks like our teenagers are now an integral part of the Karoun Dance Ensemble. Louise Nalbandian and Naiyry Sarkiss performed two truly entertaining and beautiful songs followed by DJ Raffi finishing out the evening with hours of music for dancing till midnight.