Valley’s Polish Day celebrates more than just polka and pierogi

By BOB JACKSON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Aundrea Cika Heschmeyer had a simple, to-the-point message for people who visited Sunday’s Polish Day celebration.

“We’re not just polka and pierogi,” she said of her Polish cultural heritage. “We are about so much more than that, and we want people to know it. We’re really excited about this.”

Polish Day, sponsored by Polish Youngstown, is a complete celebration of Polish culture and its contributions to science and the arts as well as cuisine and dance. The event at St. Anne’s Church, 4310 Kirk Road, continues until 8 tonight.

By mid-afternoon, it had attracted more than 1,000 people to the church and outdoor tents that had been set up to handle the overflow crowd.

Heschmeyer, director of Polish Youngstown, said the festival is rooted in a fund-raiser three years ago in the basement of St. Casimir Church in Youngstown to benefit the Polish Arts Club. Organizers expected only about 100 people, but got a turnout of five times that many.

“I said then, ‘I knew it. There is a market for this. People are hungry for it,’” Heschmeyer said.

That led to last year’s inaugural Polish Day, also at at St. Anne’s Church, which pulled in some 1,200 people. At least that many were expected to come back again this year, and Heschmeyer said planners tried to make improvements to better handle the crowds.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.