The 2023 Polish American Women’s Scholarship Winners
Last week, we gathered at the Polish American Citizens Club in Dorchester, MA to celebrate two inspiring young women, the winners of the 2023 Polish American Women’s Scholarship: Natalie Poftak and Wiktoria Kasperkiewicz. Of course, pierogi and kielbasa were served!
Natalie, whose hometown is Boston, MA, will be attending Connecticut College as a freshman this fall and is interested in pursuing a degree in Political Science and Slavic Languages. In her essay response about “What her Polish Heritage means to her”, she talked about her family traditions around food (one of the best parts of Polish culture, in our opinion!), making their own gołubki, and getting the opłatek around the holidays. She specifically wrote about the single white pepper pierogi that was made and disguised at Wigilia, for one unlucky person to bite into.
Wiktoria is a sophomore at Loyola University of Maryland. She lives in Stoughton and both her parents immigrated from Poland. Wiktoria works at the Polish School of Boston and is part of the Polish Youth Association of the USA. She highlighted that, to her, being Polish meant resilience, ambition, and pride in her heritage. We couldn’t agree more! Wiktoria is studying to become a Speech Language Pathologist, specifically with children who are neurodivergent or have other developmental disabilities. In addition to speaking Polish, she also speaks Spanish and hopes to use this in her practice.
The Polish American Women’s Scholarship was founded in 2022 by Jaju Pierogi and the Polish American Heritage and Culture Foundation (PAHCF), a 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the Polish American Citizens Club. The sisters behind Jaju Pierogi, Vanessa and Casey White, felt strongly about empowering other women to pursue their goals and were interested in also supporting the Polish-American community. They reached out to the Polish American Citizens Club to see if they may be interested in partnering. Luckily, Erica Stocks had created the PAHCF and had been also interested in developing a scholarship.
We hope to grow the scholarship year after year. We started with $1500 in 2022, and increased to $2300 in 2023, thanks to donations. If you’d like to donate, please visit the PAHCF website: https://donorbox.org/pahcf-scholarships-community-grants