The Leadership 100 endowment fund will give away the sum of 5,006,600 dollars to various departments and programs of the Archdiocese of America and beyond – as we published in detail in last week’s edition of The National Herald.

It is emphasized here that out of those five million dollars’ worth of grants for the year 2023 not a single dollar will be allocated to Hellenic Paideia. Yes you read that correctly, not one single dollar – but so much money is given away for programs and issues of lesser importance. Even the Office of the Archbishop will be getting $200,000 for the for Centennial Exhibit ‘On the Move’. My God!

Please see these items also:

The Department of Information Technology – $175,000 for Digital Transformation II.

The Department of Communications – $141,000 for Orthodox Observer Design and Rebranding Design

The Department of Communications – $100,000 for Curating Archdiocesan Visual and Constituent Communications Channels

See also these:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops – $300,000 ($150,000 per year over two years) pending successful progress reports for Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) – Campus Missionary Initiative Phase 2

The Direct Archdiocesan District – $250,000 ($131,500 in year 1 and $118,500 in year 2) for Addictions Ministry

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops – $120,000 ($60,000 per year over two years) pending successful progress reports for ‘Connect Conference for Orthodox Young Adults – Integration with Orthodox Youth Ministries’

An of course the lion’s share goes to the Hellenic College/Holy Cross Scholarship Program – $1,000,000.

Yes, these ‘ministries’ and many more Leadership 100 supports – but none are for Hellenic Paideia/Hellenic Education in America – for which, I repeat, not even one single dollar was given. That is something that speaks volumes about many things and many people.

The excuse that is used is that the Office of Hellenic Paideia of the Archdiocese didn’t file an application-request to the grant committee. I remind here that the heads of that office are Anastasios Koularmanis and Fr. Gregory Stamkopoulos, the latter whom Elpidophoros brought from Thessaloniki as a ‘handy man’ who does just about everything.

Even if those two omitted to file a request, acting irresponsibly, Elpidophoros – with all those fanfares and promissory statements he made when he first arrived – should have told to all those ‘leaders’, those executive officers and directors, the secretaries, and the rest of the club, “how dare you leave out Hellenic Paideia and you gave so much money or ‘para bakaloum’ (as they say in Turkish) to all these ‘ministries’ – even to Fordham University?

Here is a Proposal: Demetrios Logothetis, Chairman of Leadership 100, who says that he supports Hellenic Paideia, even now, at this late date, should call a special meeting of the above-mentioned ‘officials’, chief among them Elpidophoros, and tell them “let us correct our omission and allocate here and now $750,000 for Hellenic Paideia, and we will renew it every year.”
There is money for everything and for everybody, but when it comes to Hellenic Paideia the coffers dry up. What a shame!

If there truly were an ‘Archdiocesan Leadership’, things would be different. What a shame, because the ‘leader’ who came from Bursa of Turkey managed in four years to turn the Messianic hope that had been created for him into desperation.