The Polish agenda
Helping Poland in its hour of need — and it has meant that repeatedly since: relief after the great floods, medical aid, support for Poland's accession to NATO and later to the European Union.
History · Purpose · Representation
The Polish American Congress
1944
May · Buffalo, New York
In May 1944, while the war in Europe was still being fought, representatives of Polish American organizations met in Buffalo, New York and created a single national body. Their purpose was twofold: to represent the interests of Polish Americans in the United States, and to continue the struggle for a free, democratic and independent Poland. That body is the Polish American Congress.
A founding commitment
Two agendas
The founders adopted two complementary agendas, and both still describe the work.
The American agenda
Uniting the Polish American community and helping its members become better-informed American citizens, with a voice in the civic life of their own country.
In practice the Congress monitors federal legislation that touches Polish Americans and Poland, informs its members about it, organizes a common response when one is needed, supports Polish American education and culture, offers students an internship program at its Washington office, and opposes bigotry directed at Poles — from crude jokes to distortions of history such as the phrase „Polish concentration camps”.
A federation of communities
How the Congress is built
The Congress is an umbrella organization: a federation of more than 3,000 Polish American organizations, clubs and veterans' groups, among them the large fraternal benefit societies, with an aggregate membership of over one million. Individual and associate membership is provided for as well. Offices are maintained in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Its governing body is the Council of National Directors, made up of directors elected by the State Divisions and national organizations, plus directors elected at large by the Council itself. An Executive Committee elected by the Council handles day-to-day operations, and much of the work is delegated to standing committees — among them Polish Affairs, American Agenda, Public Affairs, Cultural Affairs, the Education Commission, the Polish American Heritage Month Committee and the Youth Committee.
The national voice, close to home
Division and headquarters — what is the difference
The national office speaks for Polonia as a whole: in Congress, in the federal agencies, in the national media. A State Division does the same work in one place, at the scale of a neighborhood and a city hall — a statue in a park, an incident at a precinct, a commemoration at Borough Hall, a meeting in a parish hall. Our Downstate New York Division covers the city with the largest Polish community on the East Coast, and it is elected representation, not a branch office: its officers are chosen by its own members and carry their voice to the Council of National Directors.
Meet our Downstate New York Division