Over the years, the St. George Greek Orthodox Church’s annual Greek Festival has grown into a large-scale, multi-day event bringing food, dance, and culture to Dartmouth.

Now in its seventh year, the festival was hosted at the church on Cross Road from September 15-17. With an additional third day on Friday, the event raises funds for the new church and exposes Dartmouth residents to Greek culture.

“All the money raised goes to the church,” volunteer Clover Lampos said. “We have to pay the mortgage… it’s a fairly new church.”

Parishioners moved into the new church on Cross Road in 2009 because the parish had grown substantially. Soon after, the Greek Festival began to help support it.

Putting on a three day festival takes a lot of work and planning. The St. George Greek Festival Committee spends all year planning how the festival will run. Jenny Xifaras, Patricia Verronneau, and Clover and Angie Lampos said they spent the last few months preparing and planning all the baked goods that are being sold at the festival.

The festival had a variety of Greek desserts to offer such as Koulourakia, a short bread braided cookie, Kourambiedes, a buttered cookie with powdered sugar, and baklava, which is layers of walnuts, filo and butter with special simple syrup, to name a few.

The food at the festival did not stop there. They offered tons of Greek dishes such as Souvlaki and Gyro sandwiches, as well as traditional Greek sausage Loukaniko and combo dinner plates filled with a variety of different Greek foods.

On Saturday and Sunday, Greek dance tropes performed a number of traditional Greek dances. Along with the food, desserts, dancing, and tours of the church many Greek items and merchandise are up for sale. There were tables and tables of jewelry, apparel, and even Greece’s famous olive oil Sparta Gourmet available for purchase.