A home care worker who visits Helen Wodarski weekday afternoons supports the feeble woman’s arms as they slowly walk into the kitchen. They chat in Polish as Wodarski’s helper, Teresa Kozlowska, makes coffee in the red brick bungalow where Wodarski has lived for more than 30 years on the Southwest Side.
A few blocks away, Karol Giedz, 20, a young Polish immigrant who left his country 18 months ago, reviews English phrases in a classroom. He studies in the morning and heads off to an afternoon shift at a bakery.
Wodarski and Giedz benefit from programs, including elderly home care and English as a second language training, run by the Polish American Association, which recently moved into a new location in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood.
Over the summer, the association remodeled a former bank branch at 6276 W. Archer Ave., turning cluttered teller counters into neat office cubicles and classrooms. On Friday, they will hold a ceremony marking the official opening of the facility.
“We really want to show the community that we are really here for them and will be a permanent part of the community,” said Karen Popowski, executive director of the Polish American Association.
There are an estimated 1 million people of Polish ancestry in Chicago, long known as the city with the largest number of ethnic Poles living outside their native land. The Polish American Association, founded in 1922, still has a main office on the Northwest Side, where the largest concentration of Poles lives.
But the new 4,000 square-foot facility serves the growing Polish population on the Southwest Side. There are several churches along the Archer Avenue corridor that say mass in Polish, said Rev. Thomas Bernas, president of the Chicago chapter of the Polish-American Priests Association. One church, St. Jane de Chantal, at 52nd Street and Austin Avenue, just began saying mass in Polish.
“The population is growing in leaps and bounds. There are banks, delis, doctors and churches where they speak Polish,” said Bernas, who also is pastor of St. Richard’s Catholic Church, 5032 S. Knox Ave.
Poles who live on the Southwest Side tend to come from rural areas or villages, and those who live on the Northwest Side generally come from urban areas, Popowski said. The association provides vital services to urban, rural, new and old immigrants.
“Everything they offer is an asset to the community, especially new immigrants,” Bernas said.
The Polish American Association has provided services on the Southwest Side for more than 10 years and most recently worked out of rented space in a crowded church rectory. With funds from a state grant, the group was able to purchase the property on Archer Avenue.
The new facility is far more spacious than the old and includes three classrooms, a kitchen area, a youth room and offices. The association offers a range of programs, including English and citizenship classes and counseling for domestic violence victims and youth.
The “homemaker program,” which helps the elderly, assists almost 80 seniors on the Southwest Side, said Joanna Tkacz, the coordinator. She has about 32 workers who provide daytime care for seniors. The caretakers treat “our clients like they are members of their family,” Tkacz said.
Wodarski, 83, lives just a few blocks from the new facility, but because her health is poor, she rarely leaves her home. Kozlowska, 64, cooks, cleans and cares for her. They have developed a close relationship.
“Teresa does everything for me,” said Wodarski, who is losing her vision. “I love her.”
There also is a strong kinship in the morning English as a second language class at the new facility. Two classmates work in a nursing home. Three of the women car-pool to a night-shift job cleaning office buildings downtown. Three of the men in the class, including Giedz, work at the same bakery.
“I want to learn the language and become bilingual,” said Giedz, the youngest student in the class. “There’s a lot of unemployment in Poland. Here I can get a job and it’s better for young people like myself.”
One woman in the class, Alicja Jablonski, brings her 2-year-old son, Dominik, to the three-hour class. He fidgets at his mother’s side but sits quietly when she gives him a bottle of juice and some dry cereal.
Their teacher, Victor Urban, switches easily between English and Polish as the class goes over pictures and tries to construct simple sentences.
Participants learn a new vocabulary, but they also build friendships with classmates who share a common heritage.
After class ends at 1 p.m., Jablonksi, 31, goes home for a few hours. Around 4 p.m. she picks up her two classmates for the drive to their jobs downtown.
“Here we can share experiences of what happened on the job, or how do you get a new job,” Jablonski said.
“Here we are not lost or alone. It’s like a community club.”
