We hope that holds true for all the attendees at the 6^th Annual Chocolate Festival because our Ladies Philoptochos will be one of the vendors. However, instead of chocolate goodies, we will be featuring and selling homemade baklava. This is a new venture for us. For the past several years we have held a garage and a bake sale at the church as our annual spring fund raiser, but donations of goods have been dwindling so we are skipping a year. In its place this year, we will venture into an outside fund raising event. In addition to this event being a fund raiser for Philoptochos, it is a good opportunity for us to distribute the colorful postcards we use to advertise our Annual Greek Festival that is held in May.

The Chocolate Festival will be held March 20 at the Washington Avenue Armory and is sponsored by the Addictions Care Center of Albany. ACCA provides a wide-range of community programs and services including prevention education services for children. Last fall, they provided a workshop at St. Sophia for our youth. Our participation in their fund raiser provides us an opportunity to be partners with them in their service to the community-at-large. Tina Karlaftis has volunteered to chair our participation in this fund raiser, but we are in need of volunteers to bake or to pack. Please contact Tina or call the church office even if you are not a member of Philoptochos. Note: We will also be taking pre-sale orders for baklava that you can pick up at church. So, if you’re not going to the Chocolate Festival, you can still get an order for your Easter dinner.

On a more serious note. By the time you receive this newsletter, we will be well into the most solemn period of the year—Lent. We encourage everyone to be part of this 40-day pilgrimage. There are some beautiful presanctified liturgies on Wednesdays, Salutation services on Friday evenings as well as all the Holy Week services. Dolores Bachandouris and Maria Patelos have volunteered to chair the Epitaphio collection which is used to purchase flowers that will decorate the Epitaphio on Holy Friday. Over a thousands stems of carnations, mums, lilies, and other flowers will be delivered, separated, cut and wired, and then carefully arranged on the Epitaphio for the Good Friday lamentations and procession. There will be a special donation basket every Sunday during Lent in the exo-narthex or you may mail a donation to the church office.

Maria Sokaris and her committee will be here early (try 6 a.m.) on Holy Thursday to color approximately 400 Easter eggs that will be distributed at the Resurrection and Agape service. If you would like to assist, please see Maria or just come early that morning. Finally, Philoptochos will be coordinating the Agape Fellowship on Easter Sunday and volunteers are always welcome. Call the church office.