Patience pays off!
A Christmas Eve welcome party was hosted by Diana Carlin, Joe Pierron, and the Friends-of-Iniades committee of Sister Cities Lawrence.
After the Covid pandemic dashed hopes of international travel several times over the past two years, Lawrence families welcomed visitors from our sister city in Greece over the 2021 winter holidays. It was unlike any previous sister city exchange.
The Friends-of-Iniades Committee of Sister Cities Lawrence hosted five visitors (instead of the nine originally scheduled) for ten days between December 23, 2021 and January 2, 2022. Although excursions and events originally planned for a spring visit had to be modified, the “Iniades Exchange” showed Lawrence at its holiday best. Host families shared winter holiday traditions. Group activities included a Christmas Eve welcome party, midnight mass at Corpus Christi, a New Years Eve celebration at the Greek Orthodox church in KC, an outing to the Capitol in Topeka, a paella dinner party, and a New Years Day (and farewell) party.
In July 2019 the eight students from Lawrence and chaperone/teacher Amy Meyers traveled to Greece to visit host families. The reciprocal visit was originally scheduled for April 2020. Then along came the pandemic. Plane tickets purchased early that year were extended repeatedly as the Iniades Exchange participants rescheduled their trip to the US five times.
Bob Schumm, chair of the Friends-of-Iniades Committee, expressed gratitude that the group arrived and returned home successfully during a challenging time for everyone involved.
Exchange participants included sisters Glykeria and Panagiota Karavia. Here they join Joe Pierron and Diana Carlin (not pictured) for Christmas dinner.
The New Year’s Day party hosted by Kathleen and Tom Hodge included Greek dancing and a traditional Greek cake. Dimitra Pitsikou and Maria Lachana, guests of Bob and Sandra Schumm, baked a 1 Euro coin into the cake for good luck