Polish festival supports St. Joseph School for 50 years

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

WEBSTER – Neither rain, nor a pandemic, nor the challenges of getting a doll house, stopped the St. Joseph Festival these last 50 years.
Those involved shared stories at and after the 50th annual festival to raise money for St. Joseph Elementary School, held June 17 in the school gym/parish center.
This was the first year it was held inside – because of rain, said Father Grzegorz Chodkowski, pastor of St. Joseph Basilica.
Beth Boudreau, school principal, said renting a tent for this event that brings the parish and school together was too expensive this year.
The festival was live for the first time in three years, and was one day instead of three, Father Chodkowski said. During the pandemic, the event was scaled down to raffles held virtually and sales of food that buyers picked up.
“We tried to bring back all of the booths and food that someone would expect – the traditional festival as everybody knew it,” said Jon Belanger, festival committee chairman, and father of two St. Joseph’s students. “I just think that it’s an amazing tradition for the school, the parish, and the community. I was very happy to help continue it.”
There were about 20 festival committee members who chaired different booths, and about 80 more volunteers, and they helped make it successful, he said.
“At the beginning it was very few booths,” and a car raffle, recalled volunteer Jo-Ann Canty, who thought she came all 50 years. She remembered parishioners taking days to make Polish food, enjoying the camaraderie, and the addition of games and a garage sale later.
One raffle prize this year was a dollhouse acquired by Father Anthony S. Kazarnowicz, associate pastor. When he was associate pastor at St. Joseph’s 42 years ago, he made a dollhouse and it brought in $1,200 from ticket sales.
This year Father Kazarnowicz said he saw a dollhouse for sale for $1,000 on eBay. Having experience with dollhouses he knew this one was worth about $5,000. (When he was an Army chaplain he finished and donated some dollhouses to Catholic military organizations.)
When he inquired about the dollhouse, the couple selling it told him that it was sold. Nevertheless, he asked them to inform him if the deal fell through. He told them he was a Catholic priest and wanted it to raise money for his parish’s school.
Then he learned that the original buyers backed out of the purchase because they couldn’t fit the dollhouse in their vehicle. But the sellers told Father Kazarnowicz that if he could prove he was who he said he was, he could have the dollhouse for free. He sent them a St. Joseph’s parish bulletin, a letter from Bishop McManus assigning him there and copies of his military discharge.
The agreement accepted, he rented a U-Haul, put $100 worth of gas in it and drove to Boxford to pick up the dollhouse. The couple had made it for their children and it had been in storage for 17 years, he learned.
The woman who won the dollhouse has 12-year-old twin girls in St. Joseph’s School, Father Kazarnowicz said.
Msgr. Anthony S. Czarnecki, St. Joseph’s former pastor who is now retired, recalled the first festival. He wasn’t yet stationed at St. Joseph’s, but he helped advertise the festival through a Polish folk group he had helped start, which performed at the Auburn Mall. The group, which later was named Piast, performed at this year’s festival, as did St. Joseph’s School students, who offered a talent show.
For about five years, the parish ran a Polish Week at the mall to advertise and raise money for the festival, said St. Joseph’s parishioner Marlene Proulx, whose parents were involved.
“We brought the car (being raffled for the festival) into the mall” and sold tickets for it, had a Polka band, and offered samples of Polish food, she said.
Msgr. Czarnecki said he ran about 25 festivals while pastor at St. Joseph’s.
At first, the festival was publicized in the parish bulletin; later, word also spread through radio broadcasts live from the grounds, and people came from miles away, he said.
 “Fresh-made” Polish food parishioners cooked in the school kitchen was a big attraction, he said.
“We added so much food” at future festivals, he said. “We retained all the traditional (Polish) food.”
Different Polka bands and dancing also drew people. Special features like discounts and father-daughter dances were introduced for the Father’s Day weekend event, he said.
The festival was cultural, gave people a sense of belonging to the parish, and brought them together for the common good – to benefit the school’s students, Msgr. Czarnecki said. It also had a spiritual component.
“We opened the festival with a prayer,” he said. “We tried to make (that weekend’s Masses) a little more solemn,” such as having students sing, and more people attended the Masses as they came to the festival.
“Next year everyone should come – because of the exciting games, the bounce house,” the food, proclaimed J.T. Belanger, who is going into fourth grade at St. Joseph’s School. The 9-year-old “publicist,” son of Jon Belanger, festival committee chairman, called the event “amazing.”