I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Despina Kartson is the author of Last Night’s Soup Run, a book that shares the poignant stories of the thousands of homeless and the hungry that members of her church have fed in Manhattan during the last 10 years.
Despina serves on the Board of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in New Rochelle, NY and has been an active member of the parish for more than 20 years. She is in her 13th year as a Sunday school teacher, serves on the Parish Council, and on the Boards of the Greek Orthodox Ladies Philoptochos Society at Holy Trinity and for the Direct Archdiocesan District.
In her professional career, Ms. Kartson is the global director of business development and communications for an international law firm and has held similar positions with other global law firms. She is a recognized leader in the legal marketing profession, serving on New York City and national boards and committees.
Despina was inducted as a Fellow of an international legal marketing association and is the winner of a lifetime achievement award by another legal marketing organization given to a long-standing member who has left a distinguishable mark on the chapter.
She is a frequent speaker and moderator at legal marketing conferences. Despina is the author of one book and the co-author of another book on litigation support and the author of a number of legal marketing and technology-related articles.
Alexandra King is a graduate of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, where she studied Health Sciences with a concentration in Speech – Language Pathology. She is currently a Master’s of Divinity student at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and after graduating looks forward to serving the Church in some capacity.
Alexandra has a great deal of experience in serving the homeless, as she was 12 years old when the homeless outreach program was established at her home parish of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in New Rochelle, NY. She has a compassionate nature and a strong interest in feeding the hungry.
Alexandra has also been a member of many mission trips to places such as Mexico, New Orleans, Nicaragua and Uganda. Through these missions, Alexandra experienced the importance of food to the well being of others and is committed to helping those in need achieve a higher quality of life.
Susan Russon earned a BA in Economics and Finance from Douglass College/Rutgers University and an MBA in Finance at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School of Business and had a 20+ year banking career at JPMorgan Chase Bank. Sue and her husband Manuel have two sons and live in Westchester County, NY.
Currently, Sue is the Business Manager for the Abingdon Square Conservancy, a local foundation that supports Abingdon Square Park in the West Village in New York City.
Maria Scaros is the Executive Director of The Greens at Greenwich, an assisted living facility for those living with mid-stage Alzheimer’s and other dementias. She is a creative arts psychotherapist, a certified clinical chaplain, speaker, and trainer.
Maria was born and bred in New York City. She received her BA from Hunter College, her MA and MEd from Columbia University, and attended NYU for her postgraduate work in creative arts psychotherapy. She later attended One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York, and has since gone on to become a board-certified clinical chaplain and pastoral counselor.
Throughout her career, Maria has worked and advocated for the disenfranchised, including the homeless, the hungry, the mentally ill and those with HIV/AIDS. She became deeply involved when Father Harry Pappas developed the homeless ministry in her parish. It has become a beacon of service and hope for the Parish and an example and inspiration for the National Philoptochos, the national Greek philanthropy that issued a call for a national movement to feed the hungry in 2016.
Jay is the director of marketing and communications for a global law firm. He has 25 years of experience in the legal profession, including fundraising and alumni relations at a leading university law school and senior management positions with three firms in New York City.
Prior to joining Philoxenia, Jay’s volunteer experience has included advocacy efforts related to autism and special education, as well as issues related to his profession. He helped found a nonprofit, Fathers Forum NY, devoted to fathers and male caregivers of children with developmental disabilities, which was merged with the Fordham University chapter of Kiwanis International. Jay served on the Fordham Kiwanis board during the transition. He has also served on the board of the Legal Marketing Association’s New York chapter (the international nonprofit’s largest chapter), and in 2021 was elected to serve as president-elect of the association’s Northeast Regional Board.
A resident of New York City for nearly 30 years, Jay lives in Harlem with his wife and two children.
Through two careers, Rich has helped people achieve financial and philanthropic goals. As a commercial banker he provided funding to entrepreneurs and middle market businesses. As a fundraiser, he solicited major and planned gifts at non-profit organizations in human services, higher education, and healthcare. Rich served on the board of the New York City Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and on the finance council of St. Francis Xavier Church.
As a neighborhood volunteer in three states, Rich solicited corporations and organized individuals in annual clean-up events. Over many years, he helped runaway teens to find jobs and fed homeless people at a local soup kitchen. Since 2016 Rich has been teaching immigrants to prepare for their U.S. citizenship interviews.