St. Joseph's Polish Picnic Set Sunday

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
10:10AM / Friday, July 18, 2025Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The annual St. Joseph's Polish Picnic will be serving up thousands of pierogies and gallons of kapusta this Sunday.

Held on the church grounds at 414 North St., it runs from noon to 5 p.m. and is free to the public.

The Polish picnic is one of the last ethnic festivals in the Berkshires, and the event is expected to draw several thousand people.

"It's not just for Polish people. I mean, it draws all kinds of people to the event, and it's for the non-Polish people, who this is the one time a year that they can try that kind of food," said volunteer Peter Lafayette. "If you go to these different ethnic festivals, and it's just you're tasting food that you don't normally have. So, so that's a treat."

The event was originally held by Holy Family Church and continued on once it merged with St. Joseph's.

"It started at Holy Family Church in Pittsfield, which was originally a Polish parish, and they started to have this festival each year," Lafayette said. "And then the Holy Family Church merged with St Joseph's Church, I think, about 12 or 13 years ago, and one of the things that they wanted to do was to maintain this tradition."

Now the tradition has been carried on for more than 60 years.

"There is a core group of people from the original Polish parish whose parents worked the festival, and it was always a big homecoming weekend for people from that parish who moved away, and it still is," he said. "So that's one of the incentives or motivations that keep it alive. And then it moved kind of into the merge of the other parish, which I belong to, a lot of non-Polish people. ...

"We all became kind of Polish people for a week, or at least that day. And so we help out to keep it alive, and it's a lot of fun bringing people together."

Lafayette said parish volunteers started in May making the pierogies every Saturday. They make around 5,000 pierogies, 2,800 golumbki, and 8 gallons of kapusta.

An outdoor Polish Mass will kick off the festivities at 11 a.m. Eddie Forman Orchestra will play Polish music at 1 p.m. and "KiddyLand" will provide games and activities for children. Raffles will also be available for adults.

Tags: community event, community picnic,

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Pittsfield Council Revisiting DEI Office Rename

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
04:11PM / Tuesday, October 13, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The conversation about the DEI office renaming that was halted by a charter objection will resume on Tuesday.

The City Council will discuss a request from Mayor Peter Marchetti to rename the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

It proposes to rename the DEI office to the Office of Equity, Access, and Opportunity and merge the Human Rights Commission and Affirmative Action Committee into an Equity, Access and Opportunity Commission.

The Ordinance and Rules Subcommittee supported the changes in August, and in September, Ward 2 Councilor Cameron Cunningham delayed the vote with a charter objection.

Pittsfield's City Code prohibits charter states that "if a single member present objects to the taking of the vote, the vote shall be postponed until the next meeting of the city council." It also stipulates that at least four members must object if it is an emergency measure.

Cunningham also submitted a petition, which was referred to O&R under Rule 27, to replace the DEI Office and the Human Rights Commission with an equity, access, and opportunity coordinator in the Department of Community Development, with formal complaints and Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action functions assigned to Human Resources.

At the last meeting, he spent more than an hour querying the mayor and chief diversity officer about functions and effectiveness of the department, wanting more quantitative data. Cunningham proposed an ordinance that he says keeps Pittsfield's commitment to equity, access, and opportunity, "refocuses it on measurable results for our residents, and delivers it at a fraction of the current cost."

Under this petition, the equity, access, and opportunity coordinator would be a $60,000 to $80,000 per year position.

The DEI Office's fiscal year 2027 budget was about $200,000 after cuts during budget season; $106,700 for the chief diversity officer and $58,000 for the administrative assistant. The coordinator would be appointed by the director of community development and the mayor.

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