Marty Blaszczyk received the first outstanding service award from PACT on October 4th at the Maumee Theatre before the showing of “Katyn”. Marty was chosen because of his many years of service. Joining Marty was his mother, Mercedes, his father, Frank, and sister, Jan. Read his story:
I grew up off of Stickeny Avenue in St. Vincent de Paul Parish boundaries.
I graduated from the parish grade school and was a parishioner for 35 years.
I am a graduate of Woodward High School and Bowling Green State University.
I spent six summers volunteering as a coach, parade chairman, and officer of the 4th Ward Old Timers Baseball Association in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Under my leadership, the organization reached a high in funding and organizing ten baseball teams to take kids off the streets.
Many people in Toledo Polonia know me from dartball. I helped restart the 4th Ward Dartball League in the early 1980s. I also free lance wrote and article “Darts that Go Thump in the Night!” for the former Toledo Blade Magazine section. The article increased the participation in the game.
In 1984, I was invited to join a committee to start an ethnic festival on Lagrange Street to promote the business district and the neighborhood. With no money and volunteers, I was a member of a group of twentysomethings that gambled on a day of weather to organized a Toledo tradition “The Lagrange Street Polish Festival”. For the first ten years, I was the advertising/publicity director for the festival with the attendance reaching a high of 65,000, an increase of four fold from the first year. I have been a volunteer worker for all the festivals.
In the early, 1980s I worked part time for the “Shopper Herald”, the neighborhood newspaper on Lagrange Street or better known as the paper that has “The world’s largest circulation from Pole to Pole.”
Some twenty years later, I would receive phone call as a temporary replacement editor for the LaGrange Street News. The newspaper is fund raiser for the Historic Ohio Theatre. The temporary title became permanent for the last 4 and 1/2 years.
The newspaper/newsletter has increased in popularity due to the journalistic articles about Toledo Polonia and Lagrinka today. Circulation has increased 40 percent since 2005.
I have spent nearly 20 years working in marketing research.
I currently work part time as editor of the newspaper/newsletter.
