Love in Action

May and Peter Kireopoulos are love in action. They are walking, talking, breathing examples of how to build community, how to support people in deepening their faith, and how to provide an authentic welcome to all. We are honored to name them this month’s Antonios Kounalakis Award recipients.

As founding members of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church on Brotherhood Way in San Francisco, Peter and May epitomize the very idea of brother- and sisterhood. Whenever they see a new face at church they offer an enthusiastic welcome, and eventually most of these guests become parishioners, no doubt in large part thanks to the warm and genuinely caring welcome they receive from May and Peter. Several adult converts to Greek Orthodoxy have felt so authentically valued by Peter and May that they have asked May and Peter to be their godparents. How many godchildren do Peter and May have to date? More than a dozen, with their oldest godchild so far being in his 70s when they baptized him.

According to May and Peter’s nominator, “Pete is the first person everyone sees as they enter the church on a Sunday. It is also known that he makes the best coffee. Pete has helped the church over the past several decades in various capacities, including as a member of the board. May is a friendly face at Holy Trinity and as a result has acted as sponsor to several converts to Orthodoxy. She also co-founded the Agapi Stitchers, a group of knitters who donate the clothes they knit to charity.”

May and Peter actively participate in AHEPA and Daughters of Penelope, as well, giving generously of their time and energy through these groups’ uplifting efforts. Peter is president of the local chapter of AHEPA, and May has initiated and led numerous projects by the Daughters of Penelope to serve the larger community. It is impossible to calculate the sum total of May’s and Peter’s impacts on their community, but there is no doubt that their positively loving influence has created and will continue to create powerful ripple effects for generations to come.

THANK YOU, Peter and May, for demonstrating consistently over the course of several decades what it looks like to serve freely with kindness and generosity from the heart. May we all strive to be a bit more like the two of you!

[Full transparency: May and Peter Kireopoulos baptized a member of our Greece Is The Word team, but their nominator is not one of their godchildren.]