Polish Community
Association of Maryland
The Family Polka Program
sponsors the
Polish Community
Association of Maryland
The Polish Community Association of Maryland is a non-profit organization that was founded to help preserve Polish customs and educate the public. The biggest event of the P.C.A.M. is the annual Polish Festival, held every year at Patterson Park in June. Other events are the donation of a Christmas tree to the Festival of Trees and sponsoring the annual Christmas caroling in the streets of Baltimore's Fells Point.
Christmas Caroling
December 23, 2011
Join Santa Claus and your friends for a walk through the streets of Fells Point, singing traditional Christmas carols. The carolers will meet at the Polish Home Club, 510-12 South Broadway and depart at 7:00 PM. After the caroling is over, everyone is invited to return to the Polish Home Club and enjoy the music of T.K.O. Food and beverages will be available and very reasonably priced.
Song books are provided by the P.C.A.M. If you are intersted in advertising, please contact MaryAnn Frederick at 410-276-4019 or Steve Lesniewski at 410-780-9054. Individual names at $2.00 each or quarter pages at $25.00, half and full pages at reasonable prices. All advertising proceeds are used to pay for the expense of printing the song books. Please help to keep this annual event going.
Baltimore's Polish Festival
CANCELLED for 2011
Per the Baltimore Sunpapers, March 27, 2011 (Not the whole article, just the part that explains the cancellation.)
And now, a major symbol of the community's vibrant past is fleeting: There will be no Baltimore Polish Festival this year for the first time in nearly four decades. When the celebration returns next year, it's likely to be held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.
"We've been in the city all of this time. It's a sad thing we have to move now," said Steve Lesniewski, president of the Polish Community Association of Maryland, which organizes the festival. Lesniewski is also the vice president of the Polish Home Club. "You hate to see things fall by the wayside but it happens. … Polish organizations are drying up."
Each June, the festival has attracted throngs from all over the city over a three-day weekend to celebrate Baltimore's Polish community — largely congregated in Southeast Baltimore's Upper Fells Point neighborhood, where immigrants established a number of churches, small businesses and social clubs.
The festival featured pierogies, golabki (a stuffed cabbage dish) and kielbasa. Guests drank beers such as Zywiec and Okocim, and danced to music at three stages. The celebration kicked off the city's ethnic festival season each summer. This would have been its 38th year in Baltimore; after a long run at Rash Field, the celebration moved to Patterson Park in 1990.
But the cash-strapped city recently raised the fees to hold festivals and obtain permits, and the dwindling Polish Home Club members who attend each year say that even if the festival is able to continue, it will not hold the same significance outside the old neighborhood. There was no time to find another location this year, organizers said, but they hope to secure a slot at Timonium in 2012.
Leaving the city also means leaving the historically Polish neighborhood behind, as well as the Gen. Casimir Pulaski monument in the park. A Pole, Pulaski fought and died in the Revolutionary War.
"People are disappointed to hear we are leaving," Lesniewski said. However, "I'm almost relieved. It's become a stressful fight with the city," he said. As an organizer, he is responsible for securing a number of permits, and also attracting vendors and volunteers.
Lesniewski said the city has increased the festival's required contribution for services such as sanitation in recent years. This year, the increase was 50 percent, and organizers must now pay the full cost of police and fire services.
This page will be updated as more information becomes available.
31 MAR 2011