When over 450 people, members of community organisations and respected individuals attended last Saturday’s Fronditha Care Gala Ball, for the President Mike Zafiropoulos the organisation’s major annual fundraising event wasn’t that much about the needed funds.

What hit him more was the sense of pride of belonging to the community that has been offering unprecedented support to Fronditha Care for so many years.

“The Gala Dinner surpassed all our expectations, and the benefits Fronditha will derive from that Gala Dinner will be ongoing. Apart from the financial dimension – and we’ve done very well there, having 460 people attending – there are additional benefits, the benefits of enhancing our status as a professional organisation that aims at quality at whatever it does,” Fronditha Care President Mike Zafiropoulos told Neos Kosmos.

With this year’s fundraising event aimed at raising much needed funds for Fronditha’s next major initiative – a combination of the buildings and major renovation to increase the bed numbers from 103 to 150 at the original Stegi facility at Clayton South – Fronditha’s board of management will take all the time required to decide on future plans.

“Our planning is very complex and strategic because it involves short term, medium term and long term planning.

“Fronditha has to study, to forecast the community demographic changes. We recognise that with our ability to build new facilities it will be impossible to cater for all demands. We need to be strategic as to what are the priorities, what can we do.

“Right now we are very keen to finalise renovations to our existing facilities at Clayton and building new 60 bed facility, as well as the new MS unit, for which we received the funding from our benefactors, Niko and Anna Vournazos.

“The next plans will include further development, perhaps in other states. It might involve expansion of our community packages to be able to cater for the needs of the elderly in our community,” Mr Zafiropoulos said.

He emphasised that the high value and respect that Fronditha enjoys within the Greek Australian community have been proved with the generosity of community members, and record donations by the late Michael Krizos of $1.8 million for the Thornbury facility and of $1.5 million by Niko and Anna Vournazos for the establishment of an MS unit within the Clayton redevelopment.

“We have witnessed another signpost of maturity of the Greek community, as it is interpreted in terms of their response to charity and the number of donations and their size that started to emerge. Only in last three, four years the Greek community has received more funding from the community than it received in whole history of its establishment. Fronditha received $3.5 million from just two donors.

“This is a very good sign, as it shows that Greek community people who have done well for themselves now recognise the importance of supporting collective activities such as aged care.

“Our ancestors used to say – civilization is expressed in terms of the way they look after their elderly. In a similar way, I’m very proud of the community I belong to as it is doing exactly the same.”

Mr Zafiropoulos thanked all the sponsors, donors and those who attended, for their words of encouragement and recognition – the only two things that Fronditha’s professional board needs to continue forward with the same enthusiasm.