Velventos has a long history of communal work (over 150 years). After WWII they rebuilt the entire village cooperatively. Men volunteered their time to rebuild infrastructure - schools, parks, aqueducts, sewage systems, and everything else! Kids even helped to remake the school playgrounds; paths you saw in earlier photos from the waterfall hike were built communally over decades in spare time; classes were taught to teach useful skills; women still make meals for sick or elderly neighbors. All of this continues today! One example, the old day school has been transformed into an ecological school that students from all over Greece take field trips to, and teachers from all over Greece take seminars at. Velventos works as a model for many other villages in Greece. A vote was even taken the day we left to keep Velventos independent from the rest of the region, since everything runs so smoothly there. It was very fitting as it happened to be July 4th, American Independence Day!
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