A DuBois fire company hopes to raise $10,000 again this year by selling pierogies at Community Days.
We got the background on the popular food and event.
Long before the crowds arrive, one fire company starts its work in February.
“The pierogi pinching party. As we call it, the P.P.P.,” says Volunteer Hose Co. #1 Capt. Chad Roy.
Roy says May and June are busy getting ready for Community Days firemen’s competitions like Battle of the Barrel and Sink the Tub, so they do some of their food work ahead of time.
“We make up the dough and roll it out and then take a cutter and cut them out,” says Hose Co. #1 Lt. Jody Knarr.
“We’ll have 6 or 8 tables set up in here, everybody hand-rolling the dough and cutting out the circles and some people put the filling in and pinch them closed,” says Roy.
During Community Days, they defrost and cook them with butter and onions at the fire hall.
This event has been going on for 25 years and the fire company has been making the pierogis for 20 of those years, and they even made a special T-shirt to show off their pierogi pride, from 1996-2016.
“Anybody want a haluski or hot sausage? Just out of pierogis right now,” said one man at the booth.
The line can grow while waiting for more of the 8,000-plus pierogis to arrive from the fire hall. That’s more pierogis than there are people in DuBois.
“It’s a task. It’s definitely a task!” says Knarr.
Organizers say they also got an outdoor freezer a few years ago that makes it easier to store the pierogies.
Also at City Park, a dove, a chinchilla, and a ferret are part of Mike Zaffuto’s Rock and Roll Pet Store Kids Show.
“We do a little bit of music and then some magic to make the live animals appear,” says Zaffuto. “Kids are a lot of fun, a lot of excitement. You’ll hear them screaming, you’ll hear them yelling.”
A home-made fan involving ice, a styroam container, and a fan, helps keep the animals cool.
“It’s always different because the kids, you never know what they’ll do, and you never know what the animals will do,” says Zaffuto’s girlfriend/show assistant Joi Over.
Zaffuto says he used to be in bands and has always had interest in music, and singing is part of his show.
“When my kids were little, I wrote a bunch of silly kids’ songs with them and after the band years, I decided to do something with those kids’ songs. So I started playing the music and then I developed this whole show right around it,” says Zaffuto.
DuBois resident Mindy Galentine says she and her best friend enjoy bringing their kids here.
“It just gets them out and they get to do fun things that they don’t normally get to do,” says Galentine.
We also spoke with the Kamikaze Fireflies, a married couple from Hollywood. They say they’ve been doing their show for about 7 years, which includes rope tricks, hula hoops, and fire stunts.
Rob Williams says he was on TV with Jay Leno making a sandwich with his feet and since then he’s had to do it thousands of times, around the world. He usually uses bologna to make the sandwich.
“I was doing a sort of like an improv show and every week we’d try to do a new stunt at the improv show, and that was one of the stunts and I honestly thought I would do it once and never do it again, but the first time I did it, everybody went bananas for it, so i had to do it again and again,” says Williams.
The event continues on Saturday, with the parade at 5 p.m. and fireworks at 10 p.m.
Organizers say all of the food vendors here are non-profits, raising funds for their organizations. People have been leaving chairs along Liberty Blvd. to set up their spots for the parade.
Some music performances take place on a few stages, there’s free swimming at the pool from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and a free 5-K race will be going on in the morning too for the second year.