Pride day serves up the tastes of Croatia

By Harold Gwin

The first local Croatian Pride Day had all the usual ingredients for such an event: food, music and culture.

YOUNGSTOWN — Katherine Sekel lives in Akron, but when she heard that St. George Croatian Lodge 66 would have a Croatian Pride Day here Saturday, she and friend Mildred Chudik decided they had to come.

It was a 45-minute drive and totally worth the trip, Sekel said.

“I love this,” she said, gesturing at the beef stew she was eating, adding that she also had some pork schnitzel.

“I have to save room for dessert,” she quipped, explaining she had her eye on some polachinka (crepes suzette).

“I love the music too,” she said, adding that she planned to stay through most of the performance by Vatra Tamburitza, a band from Pittsburgh.

Sekel’s parents were immigrants from Croatia, and she said she and her brother still like to speak the language. All of her music is Croatian, she added.

She said she heard about the Croatian Pride Day event through the Croatian Fraternal Union newspaper and immediately called Chudik, her friend of “50 or 60 years.” The Croatian Home in Akron closed some time ago because of a lack of support, she said.

Chudik said she didn’t hesitate to sign on for the trip to Youngstown.

“That’s a Slovak name,” she said of her last name, adding, “But I’m Croatian.”

“I love to eat,” Chudik said, noting that she had pork schnitzel and fries and planned to eat beef stew later. And, of course, some polachinka.

The music would be a bonus, she suggested.

Food and culture are what the day at the Croatian Home at 3200 Vestal Road was all about, said Ron Ples, a member of the lodge board of trustees.

The lodge tries to hold one function every month and March was open, so his sister, Renee Ples, president of the lodge board, came up with the pride day event, he said. The goal is to make the day an annual event, Ron Ples said.

It was patterned after the typical open market and outdoor cafes found throughout Croatia, and visitors could visit vendor tables to buy food or goods and get food from the lodge kitchen. Most of the vendors had a Croatian product, represented a company with Croatian roots or represented Croatian cultural groups or the church.

The event opened at 2 p.m., and there was a steady stReam of customers during the early afternoon. Ples said he expected a couple of hundred would come just to hear the music, which began at 4.

The lodge has been through some recent hard economic times, he said, and there was a point when members thought it might have to close.

But those members have been very generous and supportive, and the lodge is working hard to raise money to keep things going, holding a variety of regular fund- raising dinners and other events, he said.

Lodge 66 has about 1,000 fraternal members, some 400 social members and about 240 junior members under age 18, Ples said.

A family of three generations slowly made its way around the vendor tables, picking out various foods to take with them.

Mary L. Laska of Youngstown, whose parents came from Croatia, said she saw a notice of the event in The Vindicator and told her son, Paul, of Austintown, that she wanted to come. She came with Paul and his daughter, Melissa, 12, a student at Roosevelt Elementary School in McDonald.

“All of this brings back memories,” she said, glancing around the room. “My father worked at all of the picnics all of the time.”

Melissa said she came for the food as she moved along a row of vendors, carefully carrying a paper plate holding two pink-iced cupcakes.

Those are her favorite, she said, turning to her grandmother to ask, “Can I eat them now?”

Karen Cannatti of Youngstown, who runs Embroidery Works out of her home, was one of the vendors and prepared some Croatian Pride-embroidered articles just for the day.

“I’m 100 percent Croatian,” she said.

She’s had her business for about eight years, starting out embroidering golf shirts and towels but expanding into cancer-related designs after her sister-in-law became a cancer survivor. Now, 12 percent of her sales go to cancer research, Cannatti said.

She’s a member of a Boardman team at that community’s annual Relay for Life and sets up a table at that event, too. All proceeds from that day go to cancer research, she said.

gwin@vindy.com