How about dining with this fine figure Friday night, March 9? Alfalfa Restaurant plans one of its occasional special history meals in honor of the March 6 (1745) birthday of Polish Count Casimir Pulaski, for whom lovely Pulaski County, Kentucky was named.
After learning about the planned dinner, some magic happened, and now intriguing artist/composer Dan Dutton’s handsome bronze bust of Pulaski is headed to Alfalfa to grace the dinner. The bust will soon live in the Pulaski Judicial Center.
In this week when Kentuckians are living up to our state motto, standing united with our sisters and brothers in tornado-devastated communities, Pulaski’s story strikes a particularly strong chord. A member of a Polish noble family, he fought against Russian aggression, got into and out of many terrible scrapes, and had to leave his country when his cause failed. He came to this country during the Revolutionary War, pitched in on our side, may have saved George Washington’s life, and then died at age 34 of wounds he received fighting for our independence.
In Pulaski’s honor, Alfalfa will serve a Polish meal that includes Kentucky ingredients such as Marksbury Farm Kielbasa, house-made pierogies, and stuffed cabbage, as well as Polish beer. For more details, see Savoring Kentucky’s local food calendar page for this event.
If, like Pulaski, you want to pitch in where help is needed, there are countless ways to serve our neighbors who have lost homes, towns, businesses, and loved ones this week. Three opportunities that have come to light today:
- Morehead Community Soup Kitchen has asked for meat for soups, money, and volunteers. Susan Thomas at Coffee Tree Books in Morehead says the Community Soup Kitchen sent email on March 5 stating these needs.
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- Details: This kitchen provides providing 500 meals a day to devastated Morgan County next door. To send money: Donations go to the Community Soup Kitchen Fund, Kentucky Bank, 400 W. First Street, Morehead, KY 40351, or to any Kentucky Bank location (Versailles, Georgetown, Paris, Nicholasville, etc.). To volunteer: Hours begin three times daily, at 10 AM, 1 PM, and 4 PM. Kitchen location is 3103 Flemingsburg Road, just over 1 hour away from Lex. To donate meat, if you have a safe, credible supply and can get it to them: I recommend calling at 606.784.9533.
- Blue Grass Community Foundation, an utterly sound, reliable entity with long-term expertise in local philanthropy and an area of service that includes southeastern Kentucky, has launched The Tornado Rebuilding Fund to assist the communities long-term. Donate here.
- If you treasure newspapers and journalism, as I do, you may want to contribute to rebuilding the Licking Valley Courier, the newspaper based in West Liberty that has found ways to publish in both new and traditional formats since the storm, even though its office was demolished. Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Janet Patton tells the story here. And Al Cross, director of the Institute of Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky, tells how to contribute to the newspaper’s rebuilding here, as part of a longer story about Cooperative Extension’s role in the West Liberty since the storms.
Not just in crises, but every day, as we help our neighbors, and as we eat what our local growers grow and buy what our local businesses sell, we strengthen the fabric of Kentucky. It is true:
United we stand; divided we fall.
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