MANVILLE: Pierogi, golombki await the crowds

Food stars at Sacred Heart Summer Festival, starting Tuesday

By Mary Ellen Day, Special Writer
   Preparations are well under way for the 44th annual Sacred Heart Summer Festival, which begins Tuesday on the church grounds on Filak Street.
   The festival is known for its Polish food and usually draws a crowd of more than 10,000 people each year.
   The fair runs from 6-10 p.m. daily through Friday. On Saturday night the festival goes from 5 to 10 p.m. with the Saturday night Mass moved up to 4 p.m.
   According to organizer and chairperson Maribeth Thomaszfski, it takes months of hard work and preparation of pierogi and homemade food to make the event a success. People have come from Connecticut to Pennsylvania to eat the homemade Polish food.
   Volunteers from the Altar Rosary Society have made 1,850 dozen (or 22,200 individual) pierogi and about 1,360 golombki (stuffed cabbage) will be made daily. In past years, they were completely sold out.
   The popular polish platter is back with one stuffed cabbage, one pierogi, cabbage and noodles, kielbasa and bread — all for $8.
   ”People come from all over and stand in lines for hours for the potato pancakes and the Polish platter. Everything is made fresh daily and made to order,” said Ms. Thomaszfski.
   Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers and pizza fritz are all on the menu, too. The prices remain the same as last year.
   ”We appreciate people and we know times are tough and this is why we are trying to make it affordable for families to come,” Father Stan Slaby said.
   There are rides for the kids and fun for the whole family. Booths include the arts and crafts, cake stand, and more. All games are $1 and prizes will be for just one win. The cake stand is 50 cents a game and is all homemade goodies. There is a nightly 50/50 and the super cash drawing on Saturday night at 10. Polish Night is Wednesday night and features all Polish music.
   Dolores Serra, a longtime volunteer, is in charge of the kitchen. Ms. Serra makes sure that all the food is prepared fresh daily and keeps everything running smoothly.
   ”About eight years ago after I retired, my daughter, Maribeth, convinced me to go help the ladies make pierogi at Sacred Heart Church,” she said. “Being of Italian heritage I was a little skeptical. They showed me how to pinch the dough over the mashed potatoes. Then I went into the kitchen to boil the finished pierogi but I wanted to know how to make the dough. I like to cook, but my passion is to bake. I was more interested in knowing how to make the dough. I followed the recipe they gave me and since then I have been in charge of making the dough for the pierogi.”
   Throughout the years, she has added ingredients to make them more tasty, she said.
   ”One day I was looking through a Martha Stewart cookbook and it said that she had checked on Google for pierogi recipes and came up with more than 2 million results,” she said. “So there are many people out there making and eating pierogi and Sacred Heart Church is the local favorite for making pierogi. We even sell them year round, but the Sacred Heart Festival is our biggest sale. We make 1,800 dozen pierogi and we sell out during the festival.”
   Ms. Serra said she has volunteered for the festival since her daughter was in Sacred Heart School during the 1970s and ‘80s.
   ”It’s part of my life now and I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. “Who knew that one day an Italian woman from Pennsylvania would be in charge of the pierogi and stuffed cabbage operation for the Sacred Heart Parish Festival?”
   ’”People can help by bringing baked items for the nightly cake stand or dropping items after 8 a.m. in the church auditorium.
   It takes more than 100 volunteers daily to run the event — from making the stuffed cabbage fresh each morning, peeling potatoes and onions, selling tickets, working the stand and games and cooking. Volunteers are needed during the day to help prepare the food in the downstairs kitchen.
   ”The church is going through the nine-month process of renewing the church in Manville and this is a great opportunity for both of the parishes to work together and come together as a community and help this process move along,” said Ms. Thomaszfski.
   Father Stan said, “This is a great community-building event that proves itself for so many years to be greatly appreciated by not only by parishioners of Sacred Heart parishes but other parishes as well. This is a great opportunity to bring parishioners together from both parishes to enjoy the rich traditions. The summer festival is a combined effort of not only one group but we have Polish, Italian, Irish, Slavic, Georgian and Spanish backgrounds as well who contribute their time and talents to make this summer festival really unique and great every year.”
   He invited everyone to come and have the best potato pancakes and so does Ms. Thomaszfski.
   ”We pray for good weather. Come and enjoy,” she said.