“It is with a heavy heart,” community leader Adrian Baron has announced online, “that I must announce the very difficult decision that we will not be hosting our annual Little Poland Festival this year.”
The decision marks the second year that COVID-19 has forced cancellation of the hugely popular New Britain Polish cultural street festival. The festival was also cancelled in 2020.
The annual New Britain Little Poland Festival draws huge crowds to celebrate in the heart of the Broad Street neighborhood known as New Britain’s Little Poland. Over over 35,000 people from across the state, region and country flocked to New Britain in 2019 to celebrate the vibrant celebration of Polish culture, music and cuisine.
In making the announcement Baron cited the difficulty during the pandemic of finding volunteers to carry out the festival, as well as the difficulty of fundraising to support the event.
“Unlike other festivals,” Baron wrote, “the Little Poland Festival is self funded. We wanted to provide an admission free event for area families as a thank you for supporting our efforts in Little Poland. Each year we must raise over forty thousand dollars to pay for city services, bands, permits, rentals, etc. Unfortunately, Covid made fundraising difficult especially while local businesses struggled during the pandemic.”
Baron also cited vaccination rates, saying,
As of April 14, about 32% of New Britain’s residents had received at least one dose of vaccine. While that percentage has doubled since the beginning of March, the city still lags behind the state average. Our last festival had over 35 thousand people crammed into a few blocks. It wouldn’t make our insurance carrier too happy.
Baron said that organizers also want to maintain the quality of the festival. “We did not want to do a drive by festival, limit the number of festival goers or diminish the festival in any way,” Baron, noting that the Little Poland Festival would be incorporated into the “Celebrate New Britain Festival” this fall.
“Sorry to disappoint,” said Baron. “It was just not feasible this year,” adding,
We will be back bigger and better than ever in June 2022. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit and explore the many wonderful award winning and NY Times / Boston Globe reviewed restaurants, shops, bakeries, delis and other services that could be found in New Britain’s dynamic Little Poland neighborhood. Open year round.
