Pierogi honor is luring students

By Tom Buckham NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 09/11/07 6:58 AM

Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News City Honors students Cailin West and Alex Rogers hope their graphic design will help Buffalo retain its title as “Capital of the Pierogy Pocket.”

If Buffalo retains the title of national pierogi capital, it may be because Alex Rogers or one of his classmates in the City Honors School graphic design class created a compelling image to show how this city loves those Polish dumplings stuffed with meat, sauerkraut, potato or cheese.

The concept on Alex’s computer screen Tuesday showed City Hall with a pierogi floating overhead like the mid-afternoon sun, and the words “Pierogy Pride: Keep It in Buffalo.”

Teachers Cheryl St. George and Teresa Fundalinski were approached by Corpus Christi Catholic Church on Clark Street, in the heart of the Polish East Side, to assist in the defense of the “Capital of the Pierogy Pocket” designation the city won last year in a contest sponsored by Mrs. T’s Pierogies.
The winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize. If Buffalo triumphs, the money will go toward a new furnace for Corpus Christi’s convent, whose current furnace stopped working last winter.

St. George and Fundalinski were glad to help because the project will link City Honors’ graphic and advertising design program to community service.

The kids, who spend most of their class and after-school time designing graphics for the school newspaper and yearbook, face a tight deadline. Submissions for the pierogi contest are due Wednesday.

And the competition is going to be fierce, “especially Pittsburgh,” St. George predicted. Last year, Buffalo beat out the Steel City and three other finalists: Lancaster, Pa.; Providence, R.I.; and Garfield, N.J. Judges weighed materials from each locality and counted online votes that poured in from across the nation.

On the plus side, City Honors has bright students with new computers donated by the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation.

“We’re hoping that by end of day we’ll have a few images to send; we’ll submit them from anybody who can finish,” St. George said. “And whatever we have this year that doesn’t get used, we’ll have next year.”