The Chicago National Hellenic Museum hosted on Saturday evening a great event. Our Olympiacos, always faithful to the assistance it provides – in any way – to UNICEF, organized a wonderful even there, aiming at amassing more resources for the effort of the world organization to vaccinate children in Greece and abroad.
The whole Legend squad was present at the event!
All the players, Mr Michel, all members of the coaching and medical staff, Sports Director Mr Pierre Issa, Strategic Advisor Mr Christian Karembeu, Mr Kyriakos Dourekas, Communications Director Mr Kostas Karapapas, Marketing & Digital Media Director Mrs Veroushka Georganti and Commercial Director of the Club Mr Michael Laios.
Mr Nick Larigakis, president of the American Hellenic Institute, opened this great event by pointing out, among other things, the contribution of Mr Marinakis in the cooperation with UNICEF and the work produced by Olympiacos for this great organization! Many Greeks, of all ages, were present at the hall of the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago and embraced the effort of Olympiacos to amass more resources for UNICEF; they also wished to see their favourite club live!
The event was also attended by Liverpool representatives as well as representatives of the US Fund of UNICEF who praised the great response of the people who came to Chicago from many American cities both to be present at the event and the match of Olympiacos in Soldier Field.
During the event, there was a silent auction where many “red-and-white” items were displayed for sale in order to collect money for the charitable cause of UNICEF! The items included shirts signed by the players, balls, goalkeeper gloves, even shoes; these were all collectible items, of special value!
The “fight” to… acquire these wonderful items was tense and in fact, in some cases, the players of Olympiacos themselves auctioned for them! We even saw Abidal and Dominguez bidding against each other to acquire a Giggs shirt from the match against Manchester United, a club that also supports UNICEF’s effort! The price for this shirt was quite high!
The players of Olympiacos were the first to speak about this important event. Delvin N’Dinga spoke first and pointed out: “All of us who have this ability, we should offer children even the tiniest opportunity for a better future. It is always important to offer our assistance, especially to children in need. Olympiacos and UNICEF stand together!”
Andreas Samaris, in his turn, remarked that “all the people in Olympiacos, and not only them, can move towards this direction and assist the organization. Olympiacos has proved this last year, through its cooperation with UNICEF, that is supports this effort. The Club has offered many things and has many more to offer in the future. This is something we should all support, this is social work.”
Christian Karembeu sent his own message. “This past year, we have this important cooperation with UNICEF. And we of course do anything in our power to secure extra resources for the charitable cause of the organization, namely the vaccination of children. We are happy with this cooperation, this was a successful year for Olympiacos. We advanced in the Champions League and our name, hence our cooperation with UNICEF too, became more popular. Today we have yet another opportunity to spread this message. Olympiacos and UNICEF stand together,” he highlighted.
Veroushka Georganti, in her turn, pointed out that “we wish to thank all the people present here tonight. All those that supported our effort to spread the message of our cooperation with UNICEF as regards the vaccination of children in need, both in Greece and abroad. We could not have come to the States and Canada and not seize the opportunity we have through the International Champions Cup to bring people closer to us and to assist all these children in such great need. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.”
Of course, Nelly Ingraham, Development Officer at US Fund for UNICEF, made a special statement and explained how happy and proud she is to be participating in such an important event, and continued: “We are so grateful to Olympiacos for including UNICEF in this event during their visit in Chicago. All this time, we have an excellent cooperation and Olympiacos is a leader in stating what needs to be done for the good of children and in order to protect children and their rights. Thousands of children are lost daily because of things we know and try to eliminate! With cooperative efforts such as the one with Olympiacos, we are able to not only collect the means we need, but also spread the message of offer and assistance to the children in need. UNICEF relies upon private initiative in order to continue its work and it is important to have a club such as Olympiacos, who is respected for what it does, on our side. It is the children that gain from this cooperation.”
The event concluded with many smiling faces and our players seemed to be greatly enjoying themselves at the same time sending the message that they are always there and actively support the effort of our Olympiacos to stand by UNICEF’s side.
Watch the video here:
For more photos click HERE.
