Lifetime Achievement Award
Aris Anagnos
Real Estate Developer, Political Activist,
Philanthropist, and co-Founder of AHC
Aris Anagnos was born in Athens, Greece in 1923. After serving in the
Greek Army with the Allied Forces in the Middle East during the Second World
War, he returned to Greece and worked with the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) in general relief work for war-devastated
Greece.
He came to the United States in 1946 as a student and attended the
University of California at Los Angeles. He graduated in 1951, obtaining a
Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a major in Finance. After
1951, Anagnos was for several years in the insurance business, shifting later
to real estate investments and development.
He has been active in many community affairs, principally in the field
of human rights, civil rights, equal rights, civil liberties and the Peace
Movement. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties
Union of Southern California for over twenty-five years, including a term as
President for two years.
He is among the founders of the Humanitarian Law Project of the
International Education Development Fund, over which he presided for several
years. He has been President of the Southern California Americans for
Democratic Action. During the 1967-1974 military dictatorship in Greece, Aris
& Carolyn organized a Committee for Democratic Freedoms in Greece, which
hosted Melina Mercouri and generated support for the various resistance groups.
Upon the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Aris and Carolyn joined in
founding the Save Cyprus Council, later renamed the Hellenic American Council.
Aris has served continuously as Vice President and a term as President of the
organization. During the past year, the Council has been very successful in
contacting individual members of Congress and informing them of the issues
affecting Hellenism. Carolyn has been an active participant and in 1989 took
part in the Women Walk Home March in Cyprus.
In 1984, Aris and Carolyn made a donation to the Saint Sophia Foundation
for the construction of a Senior Citizen Home. The donation, which by 1993 had
reached close to one million dollars, was pooled with a donation from the
Philoptochos and The Senior Citizen’s Home in honor of Archbishop Makarios was
built next to the Cathedral.
Aris and his wife Carolyn have been very active in the peace and human
rights movement for the Central American countries of Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Mexico.
In the summer of 1989, Aris and Carolyn Anagnos donated one million
dollars to Nicaragua for humanitarian, educational and relief purposes and for
building a housing project for amputated and blinded Sandinista soldiers. Aris
was awarded the Commandante Enrique Schmitt Medal, the highest Sandinista award
for non¬ Nicaraguans.
In 1989, Aris and Carolyn established the Peace Center at 8124 West
Third Street, Los Angeles, which housed several peace and human rights
organizations rent free. In 2008 Aris formally donated the building for this
use, by establishing it as a non-profit foundation. In 2013 the Aris and
Carolyn Anagnos Peace Center Foundation sold its building and purchased the
15,000 square foot building located at 3916 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City,
currently housing the America Hellenic Council and the American Hellenic
Council Charitable Fund in addition to several peace and justice and human
rights organizations. The meeting rooms also allow for countless community
organizations to hold meetings and events at the Peace Center.
To learn more about Aris Anagnos and all the night's honorees, please
visit the American Hellenic Council's official 2018 Gala page.
This year's Awards Gala will take place on Saturday, March 31st, 2018 at
6 PM at Omni Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, located at 251 South Olive Street,
Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Master of Ceremonies
Commissioner Demetrios Boutris
Demetri Boutris has served in California as the Commissioner of the
Department of Corporations and as Legal Affairs Secretary & Counsel to the
Governor, and in Washington, DC as a US trade official in the White House. He
is delighted to be back in his home Greek Community in Los Angeles to again
serve as Master of Ceremonies for the American Hellenic Council's prestigious
awards gala dinner and extends his deep thanks and admiration to the Council
for its decades of leadership and dedication on national and international
issues.
ΛΕΞΕΙΣ-ΚΛΕΙΔΙΑ: ΑΝΑΓΚΝΟΣ, ΑΝΑΓΝΟΣ.
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