St Anna GOYA
GOYA Helping Those In Need
St Anna Greek Orthodox Church has a thriving GOYA Program headed by directors Maria Tsatsos and Maria Georgeles. The youth have represented the church respectively and eloquently in Metropolis events and have earned the praises of the community.
GOYA
The Greek Orthodox Youth of America, or GOYA, is the ministry to teenagers of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Since GOYA is a ministry, the orientation and implementation of the program should reflect the Orthodox Christian Faith, Tradition and Life.
GOYA is a ministry to junior high and high school grade Orthodox Christian teenagers. Teenagers should be in seventh through twelfth grades to participate. It is recommended that GOYA ministry be divided into two distinct groups, the junior high GOYA ministry and the high school GOYA ministry.
MISSION AND GOAL OF GOYA MINISTRY
The mission and goal of GOYA ministry is to lead our young people into experiencing the Holy Orthodox Faith. By developing a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and becoming active sacramental members of the living Church, our young people will be equipped with tools necessary to assist them in their journey toward salvation.
For more information regarding the St Anna Greek Orthodox GOYA, please contact Maria Tsatsos at mtsatsos@comcast.net or Maria Georgeles at maria_georgeles@yahoo.com.
2011/2012 REGISTRATION FORMS AND DOCUMENTS
❉ Medical History Questionnaire
Registration for new GOYANs begins September 11th, 2011. Any parishioner who is now of age (12 years old by October 1st, or in 7th grade) and would like to participate in GOYA, send an e-mail to Maria Georgeles (maria_georgeles@yahoo.com) or Christie Staikos (cstaikos@comcast.net).
The first GOYA activity night/meet and greet event takes place Friday, September 23rd ,at the church fellowship hall.
Officers for the 2011/12 Executive Board include:
Sofia Tsatsos – President
Anthony Kubu – Vice President
Anthony Staikos – Treasurer
Katerina Douvris – Secretary
2010/2011 YEAR IN REVIEW
As the 2010/2011 GOYA year concluded, we are happy to report that we had a total of 31 registered GOYAns.
Five of those were our senior girls, Eleftheria Tsatsos, Angelica Staikos, Stephanie Kubu, Katarina Loizou and Katerina Constantinou who are now all settled at the University of their choice continuing their higher education.
The majority of our girls have been active participants in our girls’ volleyball team. The tournaments with our District’s participating parishes have been very successful as our girls represented our Parish with Honor and Pride. Our Moto is that whether we win or lose, the end result is that our girls create friendships that may last for a lifetime. New volleyball team players are welcome to join the team at any time throughout the upcoming 2011/2012 year.
For the first time ever for our Parish, we had a boys basketball team who too represented our parish in the most respectable manner.
Our big accomplishment for this year is the purchase of our girls’ volleyball uniforms and our boys’ basketball uniforms. Thank you to all our parishioners who have supported our fundraisers to make this acquisition possible.
Most of our GOYAns also participated in our Parish’s dance troop. They got to perform at multiple events throughout the year and this upcoming 2011/2012 year will not be any different!
During the 2010/2011 year our GOYAns have participated in various district and state wide events which included:
• The annual “diving for the cross” event which took place in September. Our Parish had 4 GOYANs representing our church this year!
• Our GOYA also attended the kick-off dance in Piscataway. The theme was 50’s, 60s, 70s, and 80s!! It was a fun evening not only for the Goyans but for all of the adults attended.
• The Bridges Outreach/feed the homeless event, The Christmas dance, the Valentine’s dance and finally the end of year dance during the Olympics event wrapped up the year.
Our fundraisers for the 2010/2011 year, included the two Gyro/ Pastitsio sales, the Thanksgiving pie sale and the clothing drive.
We look forward to upcoming district and state wide events for the upcoming 2011/2012 year.
On behalf of the 2010/2011 St. Anna GOYA
Maria Tsatsos
2010/2011 St. Anna GOYA Head Advisor