Our First “St. Basil’s” Festival of Serbian Food

Christ is Risen!

We have had our first Serbian food festival on our premises on the feast day of St. Basil of Ostrog and Tvrdosh.

At first we have gathered at the Holy Liturgy to pray and give thanks unto the Lord and His great saint and our intercessor from the land of Hercegovina, St. Basil of Ostrog. Following the service, our fellowship continued at the Agape table. Our Circle of Serbian Sisters have done their utmost to ensure that the first such event at our parish is done skillfully and graciously, while the brothers helped with the BBQ and drinks.

The warm and pleasant May day enticed many guests to come and enjoy the Serbian specialties. Of particular joy was that our festival gained an international character right from the start. We have had guests of various backgrounds that make up the rich mosaic of communities in Richmond Hill: Russian, Romanian, Chinese and others, including our immediate neighbours who simply stopped by to see what is going on, and have left with a smile after experiencing our traditional hospitality and trying our specialties.

The children enjoyed our large green space and playground. Also, thanks to Zlatko Sarcevic of the “Junak” School of Sport, we organized a competition in tug-of-war and had a potato-sack race, to the great excitement of both kids and moms and dads.

By the end of this really nice day, we were visited by several hundred people. All grilled specialties were fully sold out: the BBQ-chefs had a hard time keeping up with the demand for kebabs, burgers and sausages.

Our hardworking sisters served home-made cookies and coffee, while the youngest enjoyed the ice cream.

God-willing, we plan to make this a regular annual event and to meet each year!

It was a lovely gathering and we are eagerly waiting for the next upcoming events in our parish!