A funeral service and vigil will be held Saturday to honour the life of George Mavrakakis, who died last week in a three-vehicle crash near Holland Street West and Sideroad 10.
Mavrakakis, 39, co-owned Pioneer Restaurant in Bradford's downtown core with his brother, Themos.
A visitation will be held at Skwarchuk Funeral Home at 30 Simcoe Rd., in Bradford on Saturday, May 28 from noon until the time of a funeral service at 2 p.m., which will be live-streamed.
Later, a candlelight vigil will be held, organized by close family friend, Rhonda Emmel.
Community members are invited to meet at the Bradford Community Centre at 125 Simcoe Rd. at 8 p.m. where the guests will walk along William Street, to Centre Street, and down Holland Street toward the Pioneer Restaurant, where there will be speeches and the releasing of sky lanterns.
There are also plans in the works to have a memorial bench dedicated to Mavrakakis placed on Holland Court, close by the restaurant.
The Mavrakakis family has owned and operated Pioneer Restaurant since 1982. Mavrakakis’s father originally owned the restaurant in the 1980s, where Mavrakakis started working at the age of 11. The family sold the business before moving back to Greece for a few years. They later returned to Canada and, in 2008, Mavrakakis and his brother saw the restaurant for sale on Kijiji and bought it together.
The family will be bringing Mavrakakis back home to Greece in the coming weeks where he will be laid to rest.
A GoFundMe page has been set up by friend Jenn Weatherbee to help with funeral arrangements and support for the family. A trust fund is also being set up for Mavrakakis's children, Mihail and Katerina.
Emmel has created a Facebook page where she will live stream the vigil on Saturday night. She invites all community members to join, and share their memories of Mavrakakis on the page and attend this weekend's memorial.
