Piast Receives Award from Polish American Journal

Text included below from Mark Kohan at the Polish American Journal

​Congratulations to Piast Institute!
 
Each year, the members and board of the Polish American Journal Foundation select a Polonia non-profit organization for a $500.00 donation. Past winners of this prize include The Polish Singers Alliance of America, the Polish Museum of America, the Polish American Historical Association, The Polish Center of Discovery and Learning at Elms College, and others.
 
This year, members selected the Piast Institute, headquartered in Hamtramck, Mich.
 
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Piast is a national research center devoted to Polish and Polish American affairs. It is also one of forty-eight United States Census Bureau Information Centers (CIC) and one of two located in Michigan.
 
Piast develops conferences, seminars, data publications, public programs, lectures, and exhibits that provide accurate information about Poland, Poles, and Polish Americans. It also has a special interest in the role of ethnicity in American Life.
 
With its resources and its position as a Census Information Center, Piast acts as a data resource center helping Polish, Polish American, and other business and community groups develop policy papers and historical, cultural, political, economic, social, and demographic studies on a wide variety of topics. It works to implement environmental and policy changes within its community.
 
Piast’s mission and programming also aim to celebrate Polish contributions to America as well as world culture, and to address and counter inaccurate or defamatory information about Poland, Poles, or Polish Americans.
 
It was founded in 2003 by the late Dr. Thaddeus Radzilowski, a celebrated historian, writer and academic, and Ms. Virginia Skrzyniarz, an accomplished executive serving non-profit organizations in various capacities for over thirty years. Skrzyniarz is now the CEO, being selected by the Piast Board of Directors in 2018 after Dr. Radzilowski’s passing.
 
Please join us in congratulating the Piast Institute.