Celebrating ACT Thanksgiving with Family and Friends

Thanksgiving marks the celebration of gratitude for the blessings in one's life. Here at ACT, we believe the ultimate way to express this thankfulness is by sharing these blessings with others. This philosophy was vibrant throughout our campus via a plethora of fun, giving-based, and community-building activities.

This year marked the first ACT thrift exchange! For one week, the ACT student body had organized a space in the student lounge where students could pass by and exchange items with each other to give new life to things that were still in good condition. Naturally, any remaining items were donated to local organizations to reduce our carbon footprint and give back to the community. Another expression of giving was present in our cooperation with “The Smile of The Child”, setting up an arts and crafts station where we prepared hand-made gifts to donate to various children’s hospitals in the spirit of the upcoming Christmas. Also, together with the NUin program, ACT helped facilitate a “Thank You Cards” station where students could express their gratitude for the people in their lives by crafting and decorating personalized cards. Lastly, ACT cooperated with “Break the Silence”, a local non-profit organization, to raise awareness for Domestic Violence through a seminar, crafting educational posters, and a march across the Anatolia campus.

Of course, following American tradition, ACT gathered for a Thanksgiving-themed dinner, filled with turkey, gravy, and homemade stuffing.

To add to that, students from the NUin program were fortunate enough to experience a second, traditional, Thanksgiving dinner, alongside their classmates and many visiting family members.

Following this dinner, these families would spend a day in the shoes of a NUin student at ACT, visiting campus for the 2nd Annual “Family Day”.

Just like a NUin student, the Family Day experience started with a bus ride from the hotels to Anatolia’s beautiful upper campus. Upon arrival, over 200 family members were greeted with a reception by both ACT and NUin staff at Raphael Hall. There, they were immersed in history with a timeline of Anatolia’s rich heritage as well as seeing how the combined efforts of ACT and Northeastern University have brought the NUin Greece program to where it is today. Following this presentation, family members joined tours of the campus and had an opportunity to meet one another and spend time with their students, gaining a glimpse of the first-semester college experience of a NUin student.  Lastly, NUin families were sent off on their next and final adventure: the city tour of Thessaloniki. These tours included a full experience of the panoramic and historically rich scenes of the city that their children had been living in for a short, but colorful past three months. This tour concluded at sunset, at the iconic White Tower, leaving these families with the opportunity to enjoy their evening in Thessaloniki with their loved ones.