{"id":18496,"date":"2014-08-26T23:56:01","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T05:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forum-polonia-houston.com\/?p=18496"},"modified":"2014-08-27T00:13:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T06:13:26","slug":"the-houston-polonia-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/?p=18496","title":{"rendered":"The Houston Polonia Memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are approximately 250,000 Polish-Americans in our great state, and 55,000 of them live here, in the Houston Metropolitan Area. <strong>Our Lady of Czestochowa (OLC) Roman Catholic Church<\/strong> is the spiritual center for our Houston Polish community, and offers a rich variety of religious, cultural, social and educational activities. The parish has been established in 1982 and is considered to be one of the most vibrant Polish parishes in the USA. It is open not only to those of Polish heritage, who appreciate the priceless treasures of Polish culture, traditions and customs steeped in 1,000 years of devotion to the Catholic faith, but to all ethnic groups of our church. The parish is also a home for the Polish School at Houston.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010 the Parish Council of OLC and the Polish American Congress, Texas Division, established \u201c<strong>The Houston Polonia Memorial Fund<\/strong>\u201d in order to support building a monument, a visible sign, dedicated to preservation of our culture and celebration of the memory of those who had passed away and who visibly enriched the life of our community.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-18499\" alt=\"JPII_memorial\" src=\"http:\/\/www.forum-polonia-houston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/JPII_memorial-300x170.jpg\" width=\"663\" height=\"359\" \/><\/p>\n<p>According to the architectural plan, developed by our own architect, Mr. Hector Villarreal, the statue of Saint Pope John Paul II is a focal point of the Memorial Plaza, surrounded by a green space, flanked by a Memorial Wall (place for the Commemorative Plaques) on its south side, and in parts paved with the Commemorative Pavers (bricks\/cegie\u0142ki) bearing the names of persons who wish to be memorialized.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18501 alignleft\" style=\"margin: 15px;\" alt=\"JPII_CARD_Rev-A\" src=\"http:\/\/www.forum-polonia-houston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/JPII_CARD_Rev-A-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/JPII_CARD_Rev-A-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/JPII_CARD_Rev-A.jpg 533w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-shadow'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><em>Dear Friend,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Our fundraiser to build the <strong>Houston Polonia Memorial at Our Lady of Czestochowa Church<\/strong> is underway. Our goal is to make the John Paul II Plaza as beautiful as our Church and Parish Hall. We invite you to join us in building this monument, which we expect to cost approximately $100,000. For each contribution a personalized Commemorative Paver (brick\/cegie\u0142ka) with your name engraved on it will be placed in a pavement surrounding the statue of Saint Pope John Paul II, a focal point of the Plaza. Also, in memory of those who passed away, you can order a Commemorative Plaque that will be placed on the Memorial Wall, an integral part of the Plaza. All donations are tax deductible, and we appreciate your generosity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>God Bless you!<\/em><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To order a paver or commemorative plaque, download a form below and provide the following information along with your check in the appropriate amount made out to \u201cOur Lady of Czestochowa Church\u201d, with the notation \u201cThe Houston Polonia Memorial Fund\u201d and send to the address of Our Lady of Czestochowa Church.<\/p>\n<a href='http:\/\/www.forum-polonia-houston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/HPM_Sponsorship_Form.pdf' class='small-button smallblue' target=\"_blank\"><span>Commemorative Plaque Order Form<\/span><\/a>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-shadow'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><p>For more information please call <strong>Fr. Waldemar Matusiak, Pastor (713 973 1081)<\/strong>, visit the parish website: <a href=\"www.parafiahouston.com\"><strong>www.parafiahouston.com<\/strong><\/a>. or call the project coordinator, <strong>Marian Kruzel at: 832 419 3693<\/strong><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are approximately 250,000 Polish-Americans in our great state, and 55,000 of them live here, in the Houston Metropolitan Area. Our Lady of Czestochowa (OLC) Roman Catholic Church is the spiritual center for our Houston&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-our-community","category-initiatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18496"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18513,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496\/revisions\/18513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum-polonia-houston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}