The Consulate General of Poland in Los Angeles has just received a special laptop and all the equipment needed for processing passport applications on the road. Seattle is the first stop in the new series of passport trips by the Polish consuls.

 

The Consul is scheduled to visit Seattle on Aug 3 & 4, 2010. Assuming the equipment works as expected, passport applications will be processed at the Polish Home in Seattle 10 am - 6 pm on Aug 3 (Tue) and 9 am -  5 pm on Aug 4 (Wed). There will be the usual reservation system on both days.

 

To make a reservation, please contact Mr. Marian Strutynski, (425) 746-3037.

The application will be processed according to reservation list, with people without reservations served as the time allows.

posted July 29, 2010

Dr. Janusz Dominik, a longtime member of the Polish community died in Seattle on July  10, 2010 at age 84. Mr. Dominik was born in Cracow, fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and gained his medical diploma in Galway, West Ireland, where he met his wife Mary. In Seattle he practiced as a family doctor and consultant. He was an longtime  member of the Polish Home Association and a generous supporter of the Polish Home. Also please see Dr. Dominik's obituary.

 

Dr. Dominik is survived by his two sisters Jadviga of New York and Alicja of Poland, by other family of Poland including his grandniece Agatha and great grandniece Pola who were with him at his death, and his late wife's family in Ireland.

 

Funeral Mass:        11 am on July 21, 2010 at St. Joseph Church in Seattle

Burial                     following the mass, at Lake View Cemetery

Wake after burial:   from 12:45 at the Polish Home in Seattle

Guest Book:           visit the Guest Book here

Remembrances in lieu of flowers should be written to Polish Home Foundation, and sent to Polish Home Foundation, 1714 18th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122, marked in memory of Dr. Dominik.

posted July 19, 2010

Seattle Polish Film Festival is pleased to announce a poster competition for the upcoming 18th Annual Seattle Polish Film Festival. Deadline for entries is September 1, 2010. Winner will receive 2 festival passes and an invitation to the opening reception. Please visit Seattle PFF site for competition rules and poster requirements.

 

More: SPFF poster competition, SGSCA

posted July 7, 2010

Alisa Lidzbarski Lahti is a Seattle-based artist creating paper-cut and wycinanki-influenced artwork; wycinanki being the Polish art of fine cutouts. Her work will be on display at a Paper Artist Exhibion at Westmoreland Museum of Modern Art in Greensburg, near Pittsburg, PA. Congratulations!

 

For a local opportunity to admire Ms. Lahti's art, check out this event Best of Magnuson Park art fair.

  

posted July 1, 2010

Several people in the local Polish community received an "urgent" mail recently, supposedly from a member of the community, asking for financial help due to being stranded abroad without money. Please note, this is a well known scam scheme and the person in question is all the time happily living in Issaquah. Hallmarks of the scam - person stranded at a hotel abroad, but no hotel name or phone number given.

posted June 30, 2010

Update: Results for the Seattle polling station #177: Kaczynski 146, Komorowski 139, full results here.

 

This is the second and final round of the early presidential elections in Poland after the tragic death of President Kaczynski. A polling station for Polish citizens is at the Polish Home; voting in the United States is set on July 3, 2010 from 6 am to 8 pm. To vote you have to be registered - people who have not registered before the first round can register till July 1, 2010. More info here.

 

More: Election FAQ, Detailed info about oting in Seattle (in Polish), results here

posted June 21, 2010

Poland has suffered two flood waves on all major rivers, affecting especially cities on the Vistula. If you would like help please read on:

 

Locally in Seattle: Polish Home Assn. asks for donations for the flood victims in Poland. These funds will be sent to the Red Cross in Poland to help with the needs of those affected. Please send a check to: PHA,  1714 18th Ave Seattle, WA 98122, and mark "Red Cross or Flood" in the lower left corner.

 

Nationally: Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation also asks for tax deductible donations for flood victims. Please send checks to PACCF, 5711 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60646, marked "Flood Relief for Poland". Donations to PACCF are eligible for gift matching programs.

posted June 8, 2010

Project coordinator Janice Jaworski

Anna Borodenko

Update: Results for the Seattle polling station #177: Kaczynski 132, Komorowski 121, full results here. The second & final round of voting is on July 3, 2010.

 

The early presidential elections in Poland after the tragic death of President Kaczynski have been called for June 20, 2010. Polish citizens can vote in Seattle at the Polish Home; voting will be on June 19, 2010.  If you want to vote, you have to register - please read detailed info here (in Polish). Registration deadline is June 17.

 

More: Election FAQ, Detailed info about registration & voting in Seattle (in Polish),  Ulotka Wybory 2010 w Seattle (in Polish)

posted May 2, 2010

UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee announced that the $1500 Student Scholarship for 2010 was awarded to Mr. Corey Krzan. Mr. Krzan is a third year undergraduate student who is double-majoring in French and Eastern European Languages. He is active in the Polish Student Association at the University of Washington and he is also going to Poland for a one year program at the Polish Culture and Language School at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. Congratulations!

 

More:  UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee scholarships, UW Polish Student Association

posted May 2, 2010

The recent lecture about Seattle-area Siberian exiles and screening of the movie A Trip To Nowhere at the University of Washington brought news about other efforts to document the WWII deportations.

 

Below, some links related to a documentary movie The Lost Requiem by the internationally renown Iranian director Khosrow Sinai. Mr. Sinai shot the movie in 1970s after attending a funeral at the Polish cemetery in Tehran.

 

A video interview with director Sinai and a separate press interview about making the movie (many historical photographs from Iran), and . In 2008, President of Poland, Mr. Kaczynski decorated Mr. Sinai and survivors living in Iran: an article in Wprost, official gov note. Mr. Sinai with Mr. Wajda in 2008.

posted May 2, 2010

Considering the tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and other Polish statesmen and women and also considering a successful relationship & friendship of the City with a sister city of Gdynia, Poland, the City Council of Seattle made a proclamation expressing on behalf of the people of Seattle a sincere sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the people of Poland and to the sister City of Gdynia.

 

posted April 20, 2010

The Polish community of Seattle joins Poles and friends of Poland everywhere in mourning the tragic loss of President Lech Kaczynski, First Lady Maria Kaczynska and members of the Polish elite who died in the plane crash in Russia on the way to a Katyn commemoration. Our thanks go to all who extended their sympathy and remembered them in their prayers.

 

If you would like to express your sympathy in this tragedy for the Polish nation, this is what you can do locally:

 

   The Book of Condolences is available for signing at the Polish Home in Seattle for the next two weeks on Friday evenings from 6 pm and Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4 pm. Books of Condolences are also available at the Polish Consulate in Los Angeles and in Vancouver, BC.

 

   The Mourning Mass will be held at the Polish Church in Seattle at 11 am on April 17, 2010.

 

Below an update from local events mourning the tragedy.

  Gail Wodzin's report and pictures from the ceremony at the Polish Home organized by Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Assn on April 11, 2010

  KOMO news video with the news of the tragedy and clips of members of the Polish community, including Ron Golubiec and Paul Griffin speaking at the ceremony at the Polish Home

  KING 5 news video with the news and clips from St. Margaret's including Fr. Stanislaw Michalek and Aldona Bazant.

  Seattle Times short report from the Katyn commemoration in Seattle on April 11.

 

Also:

   The undelivered Katyn speech of the President (Rzeczpospolita daily, in Polish)

posted April 12, 2010

Mr. Andrzej Falinski, a longtime member of the Polish community died suddenly in Seattle on March 24, 2010. Mr. Falinski was born in Kielpin, in northern Poland, in 1946. He arrived in the US 1985, settling in Seattle in 1989 and working as a precision machinist. He was an active  member of the Polish Home Association and served as the Polish Home Manager for five years.

 

Mr. Falinski is survived by his daughter Gosia Busse with husband Eric and their sons Elliott and Ethan, daughter Magdalena Braun with her daughter Zoe, niece Bozena Commerree and friend Halina Cielslik with her three daughters and three grandchildren, all of the Seattle area, as well as sisters Krystyna and Zofia with their families in Poland.

 

Memorial Service: On March 31, 2010 at St. Margaret’s Church in Seattle

                              11:30  am - 12:45 pm viewing

                              1:00 pm  Vigil Service

Wake to follow the service: at the Polish Home in Seattle

Interment at a private ceremony later

posted March 29, 2010

Polish American Congress and the Piast Institute launched a national campaign to reinstate Polish ancestry option on the census form. The current census does not ask about white ancestry, but you can still mark Polish ancestry as an add on. PAC & Piast ask everybody to do just that - mark the Polish ancestry on the form - in order to get the ancestry question reinstated.

 

More:  Please read about the national campaign & how to mark Polish ancestry on the census form.

posted March 18, 2010

It's official: On Feb 19, 2010, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) declared that a new element with atomic number 112 will be called Copernicium in honor of Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicium was discovered in 1996 by a team of scientists led by Prof. Sigurd Hofmann from Darmstadt, Germany.

 

More:  Wikipedia info, IUPAC announcement

posted March 11, 2010

Local Polonia welcomes Mrs. Ewa Orlowska, a new Seattle correspondent to Nowy Dziennik. Thanks to her efforts, this biggest Polish language daily newspaper in the United States printed recently two local stories about our community. The story about Malgorzata Walewska describes efforts of the UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee to support Polish studies at the University of Washington, while an earlier story introduces Polish Book Club in Seattle. The Editor is a longtime reader of the Nowy Dziennik weekend edition and its cultural section – it’s worth subscribing to.

 

More:  subscription information for daily, Friday and weekend editions, Nowy Dziennik website

posted March 7, 2010

At the Polish Home Association election meeting on January 30, 2010, Mr. John Golubiec has been reelected as the PHA President and Mr. Adam Strutynski as the Senior Vice-President. Congratulations!

 

More: Polish Home

posted Jan 31, 2010

At the Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Association election meeting in January 2010, Ms. Debra Markert has been re-elected as the SGSCA President, Mr. Tom Clark and Ms. Janice Jaworski as Vice-Presidents, and Ms. Harriett Wodzin as the Treasurer. Congratulations!

 

 

More: SGSCA

posted Jan 26, 2010

Follow up on the grant: the Polish Home in Seattle has received an $80,000 matching grant challenge from the City's Neighborhood Matching Fund in June 2009. Subsequently $40,000 was raised for the grant and the grant contract was signed in October.

The Polish Home grant committee would like to thank from the bottom of their hearts to all the supporters who made this possible through their generous donations. The money from the NMF grant is being used to finish up the new wing of the Polish Home and will also be used to remodel the old part of the Polish Home building . Read more here.

 

More: about Polish Home Extension project, grant info - how to danate

Related offer from Danuta Moc

posted Oct 22, 2009

The Sybiracy Project - a local initiative to document survival stories of the Polish victims of Soviet mass deportations to Siberia during WWII - has culminated in a film premiere and art exhibit under the common title Trip to Nowhere. The exhibition opens in Boston at the University of Massachusetts campus on November 8, 2008.

 

Where: Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston, MA.

More: The Sybiracy Project website - survival testimonials and other info

posted Sep 23, 2009

The Polish Home in Seattle has received an $80,000 grant from the City's Neighborhood Matching Fund. However, it is a matching grant and the challenge is the Polish Home needs to receive new donations before the NMF grant can match them. $40,000 in cash donations is needed to sign a grant contract with the City. By Sep 22, 2009 we are almost there – thank you donors! Donations still appreciated. Read more here.

 

The Polish Home asks all the members and friends of the Polish Home to donate money to the Polish Home Foundation to benefit from the NMF grant. If you have not donated to the Polish Home yet, or would like to increase your donation, please do so now! Your money would be doubled and the grant will speed up completion of the Extension project. Please donate today!

 

More: about Polish Home Extension project, grant info - how to danate

Related offer from Danuta Moc

posted July 25, 2009