past event

Saturday, October 8th was a great day for the Kielbasa crowd in Toledo.  The 2nd Kielbasa Cook Off was held at the Donnely Family Neighborhood Center at Blessed Sacrament Church.  Twelve amateur kielbasa makers vied for the coveted title of "Kielbasa King".  There was no shortage of kielbasa and everyone was able to purchase kielbasa samples along with other great Polish food like kapusta, mizeria, placek and Cruchinki.   After sampling the kielbasa, the votes were cast and the people of Toledo have spoken!  The new kielbasa king is Shawn Zaborski's Polish Village Kielbasa.  Second place winner is the Smith Family Kielbasa and third place winner is Domanski Klassic Kielbasa.  Congratulations to the new Kielbasa King and all of the contestants.  The votes were very close this year which means all of the contestants offered great tasting kielbasa.  We are planning next year's Cook Off already so all of you amateur kielbasa makers in the Toledo and Northwest Ohio and Michigan, make plans to compete in next year's cook off.  You never know who will be the next kielbasa king.  It could be you. 

The winning team at this year's Kielbasa Klassic held at the Giant Oak Golf Club included Bud Crosby - Billy Peneff - Bill Akers and Jack Sparagowski. The team from Ski's Restaurant had a nice round of -14 under including two eagles. The winners each won 10 Pounds of kielbasa from Stanley's Market, a beautiful individual trophy and a cash prize. In addition to the kielbasa, brats and hot dogs, there were plenty of other goodies to go around as well as a "little bit" of beer. Thank you to PACT members Sherry Servis and Rozanne Nitschke for cooking the kielbasa for the hungry crowd. Nearly everyone in the outing received a door prize which included gift certificates to many local golf courses and restaurants as well as golf apparel and equipment. This has gotten to be one of the better amateur golf tournaments in the area. Make plans to play in next year's Kielbasa Klassic as well as Ski's Two-Man Polish-American Scramble. This year's Kielbasa Klassic was sponsored by Stanley's Market, Ski's Restaurant and PACT. All proceeds go directly to the Polish American Community of Toledo.

 Chris Hinds and Lee Schmidlin are this year's winners at the Ski's 4th Annual 2-man Scramble Tournament.  Tim Egan and Sal Tbeileh came in second and Bob Darmafal and Jeff Slade came in third place out of 21 teams.  Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all players and Ski's Restaraunt for hosting the tournament and providing the great dinner afterwards.  All proceeds from this tournament were donated to PACT.  Unfortunately PACT board member Bill Peneff and his teammate, Bill Akers came in second from last.  Better luck next year, Bill.

 Thank you to all the brave souls who defeated nature and ventured out to Ski's Restaurant on Sunday, December 12th, for the second annual Wigilia Celebration. Even though the weather was frightful, Wigilia was delightful. Participants this year were Stan Machosky as the Masters of Ceremony, and Claire Gunther who lit the candle that represented the first star of the evening. Father Gerald Knieven did the honor of explaining the Christmas story and giving the blessing of the food. On hand to sing koledy (Christmas carols) were Sister Maurice Wodarski, Sister Geraldine Paluszak, Sister Aloise Paluszak, Sister Bernice Pasiowitz, Sister Rozalma Kmiec, Sister Rachel Najikowski and Sister Josetta Konopka. They did an excellent job singing the carols in Polish and we are very grateful to them for helping us out. Everyone agreed that the food was delicious this year, especially the fish, pickled herring, and cruchiki. The compote made with Polish vodka was quite good too. PACT also raffled off a Christmas paper cut art that was generously donated by Mary Gaynier. The lucky winner of the artwork was Tim Burnett. Wesolych Swiat!

On Saturday, July 24th, the Katyn exhibit came to Toledo. The presentation was shown at the Rosary Care Center on the campus of Lourdes College in Sylvania, Ohio. Dr. Allen Paul gave a lecture about the events surrounding Katyn in World War II and the background to this historic and tragic event that took the lives of 22,000 Polish army officers, intellectuals, teachers, and government officials by the hands of the Russian Army. This event took place in April of 1940. The event was sponsored by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (co-chair of the Polish caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives), the Polish Embassy and the Kosciuszko Foundation. If you missed this exhibit, you can view Dr. Paul's presentation on the website of WTGE.