Community Outreach

Cathedral provides its 100^th meal to the Reinhart House

In September, Greg Silvestri and Ruth Catherines provided the Cathedral’s 100^th consecutive monthly meal to the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House in Henrico County. The guest house furnishes meals and low-cost housing to out-of-towners who visit loved ones in the intensive care unit at St. Mary’s Hospital. Virtually every organization in the Cathedral family and many individual members have contributed to this ministry over the past decade. The remaining three months in 2026 are scheduled to be filled by the Parish Council in October, GOYA in November and Philoptochos in December. Organizations that would like to sign up to provide a Reinhart meal in 2027 should call our coordinator, Greg Silvestri at (804) 288-1587.

Lois Harrison Jones Elementary School: Calypso Bletsos and Krista Loucas sponsored a back-to-school breakfast for 50 teachers and staff at the school on Forest Hill Avenue. They were treated to mini quiches, bagels and schmears, danish, donut holes, fruit salad, juices, coffee with specialty creamers and yogurt. The teachers also had leftovers to snack on throughout the day as they set up their classrooms. Also, at the school in September, our GOYAns completed a “speed shop” at Kroger as part of our Something Good Sunday’s initiative. The idea is to get as many snacks as possible in 15 minutes at a supermarket to benefit the classrooms at Lois Harrison Jones Elementary School. This was a great success last year and GOYA had a great time.

Blood Drive: Our August blood drive netted 35 pints of blood for the American Red Cross. The drive exceeded its goal of 23units. Our coordinator, Dr. Martha Sotos, said the donors included Cathedral parishioners as well as members of the community. Two drives will be planned for 2027.

International Orthodox Christian Charities: Mark Chronis organized and led an IOCC school supply drive at as an activity at the Community Outreach Ministry meeting. Fifty bags of supplies were prepared. The supplies included basics for students: pencils, pens, rulers, erasers, notebooks, etc. Mark will work with Mike Lapallo and the YAL on an upcoming IOCC emergency supply bucket drive.

College student support: Calypso Bletsos reports a growing number of University of Richmond students are attending services regularly and that she may need additional support to provide rides. Two UR students also help coordinate rides. Father Philemon says there are as many as 30 students participating in the Orthodox Christian Fellowship ministry, so there is a potential for more students to attend church. If you are interested in helping to shuttle students from the campus to the church and back on during services, please call Calypso at (804) 307-8146.

Companionship and visitation: John Bletsos reports that regular visitations and transportation support is ongoing for several homebound parishioners. John would like more Community members to get involved in visiting, writing to or calling our Cathedral shut-ins, many of whom are Greek-speaking.

Krista Loucas reports that GOYAns are doing their part by participating in a pen-pal program in which they write monthly letters to 20 parishioners from the homebound list. The children got their pen pals on August 30 and sent cards in September. They will continue to do so monthly until June.

Kairos Prison Ministry: In this ministry, homemade cookies are delivered to those serving time in prison. The next delivery will be in November. Please keep an eye out in subsequent church bulletins for guidelines and times to participate. Gina Pappas, our coordinator, reports that earlier this year during the previous drive, dozens of cookies were donated, including 15 dozen from Sunday school children.

Boaz and Ruth Donation Drive: Thanks to the generosity of our parishioners, several bins of donated goods were collected to benefit the Harvest Thrift store operated by Boaz and Ruth. Their primary Mission is to support rental housing for very low-income residents in the Highland Park neighborhood of Richmond.

The next meeting of the Community Outreach Ministry is scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday, October 20 at the Cathedral. All parishioners are welcome to attend.

Community Outreach Ministry Vision

To grow closer to the broader Richmond community through acts of service as a Cathedral family and, by this, unite us to Christ.

To achieve this Vision, we will:

Help build awareness of existing outreach activities at the Cathedral
Be a resource to facilitate involvement and participation of Cathedral parishioners in outreach activities
Serve as a sounding board for expanding the scope of volunteer outreach
Sponsor community-wide activities (outside existing organizations) targeted for the local community
Coordinate Cathedral response to national & international crisis/emergencies

Community Outreach Ministry Members:

Jim Katsaros, Chair / Parish Council Liaison

Tom Kazas, Co-Chair / Communications Director

Father Philemon Patitsas, Sponsor / Inspiration

Key Ministry Champions:

Calypso Bletsos, College Student Ministry

John Bletsos, Companionship Ministry

Ruth Catherines, Philoptochos Liaison

Mark Chronis, IOCC Liaison: Emergency Supply Drives & Tennis Tournament / Fisher Guest House Meals

Gina Guinn, FeedMore / Food Drives

Elaine Hall, Clothing Supply Drives

Nikki Katsaros, ICU Comfort Kits