Greek Coffee Wednesday Highlights Importance of Community

Bilingual speaker Andreas Georgiou has tremendous dedication and selflessness volunteering at MannaCare for the past four years. He says “it was the best thing I ever did. I love it.”

Coming from Cyprus and having retired ten years ago, he has “always wanted to give back to the community because of the opportunities Australia has given him and his family.”

And every Wednesday, Andreas makes his way to MannaCare, revealing “I round up all the Greek residents, of which there are about a dozen, and I make them Greek coffee. MannaCare give us a room which we call the ‘Greek’ room and everybody loves it.”

This weekly act is highlighting the importance of finding common ground to maintain connection and conversation as we grow older.

Says one staff member, "Andreas somehow manages to entice residents to his Greek club program when those same residents do not participate in any other leisure activities run by staff during the week.”  Sometimes family members also turn-up as the atmosphere is so good!

Andreas loves Wednesday's and can’t wait for it to come around so that he can visit “his customers” which is what he calls the Greek residents.

The residents relate well to him and look forward to the ‘Greek Club’ each week. “We chat about the old country and about their lives in Australia and they enjoy that,” says Andreas.

“I am very happy and proud to see that they are so well looked after at MannaCare,” he continues.

In fact, he was so happy with the care that he placed his mother into MannaCare when she could no longer live at home.

Find out more about MannaCare.