KOLACH FESTIVAL

C.R. church is back with its annual festival in new building, kitchen

By Cooper Worth, The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS — After taking a year off, St. Ludmila Catholic Church is back this week to host its popular Kolach Festival out of new quarters with a commercial bakery to make even more of the traditional Czech pastries.

For over 50 years, parishioners of the church have baked thousands of kolaches — a pastry made with fruit or other flavorings — to sell as an annual fundraiser.

Previous festivals were held at the old St. Ludmila school. This year’s festival will be the first in the church’s new 35,000-square-foot community center at 211 21st Ave. SW, which opened earlier this year in place of the school after it was demolished in 2022.

The festival is free to attend and runs Friday through Sunday. Besides the kolach sale, there is a silent auction, inflatables, entertainment, raffles and a beer and wine garden.

Seth Vander Tuig, co-chair of the festival, said this is the first Kolach Festival the church has held since the pandemic struck. The church did not hold festivals in 2020 and 2021 and had only an abbreviated version in 2022, with some COVID-19 restrictions like mask requirements and social distancing still in place.

“We don’t have a theme every year, but I think the ‘Return of the Kolach’ is our theme this year,” Vander Tuig said. “We are excited to return to what we’re used to doing every June.”

The new community center features a commercial bakery with multiple ovens, a rounder to shape the dough and a proofer to raise the dough. Church volunteer Tom Day said the building cost roughly $9 million, with the bakery accounting for nearly $500,000 in construction costs.

In previous years, volunteers baked up to 90,000 kolaches to be sold during the festival. Day said that with the bakery’s new functions — which can bake 120 dozen kolaches in 15 minutes — the church hopes to produce 120,000 kolaches for this year’s festival. Due to the size and capabilities of the new space, Day said the bakery will be available to rent to cater weddings and other events at the church.

“One of the goals in designing the bakery was to make more kolaches in less time while working in a better environment,” Day said.

That meant adding air conditioning to the new bakery.

“The old kitchen was not air-conditioned, so it will be much more comfortable for volunteers,” said the Rev. Ken Glaser of St. Ludmila’s. The bakery “is also much bigger, so volunteers won’t be cramped like they were in the old place.”

Working in a comfortable environment is essential to creating kolaches, as the pastry can be very timeconsuming to make. Starting Thursday afternoon until the festival’s conclusion, volunteers will work five three-hour shifts throughout the night to ensure fresh batches of kolaches when the festival opens. Day said it takes roughly 70 people for each shift.

“Most of the kolaches are made at 2 or 3 a.m. and are sold that same morning when we open at 6 a.m.,” Vander Tuig said.

Volunteers have been doing weekly practice bakes to prepare over the last two months.

“The process (of making kolaches) is still the same. It’s just all new equipment, so there has been a bit of a learning curve,” Day said. “Luckily, the companies that provided this equipment have offered training and assistance.”

SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Glaser said the festival has attracted spectators from both coasts, and it’s typical for former residents to come back every summer to attend.

“We have some people who were raised on this and have moved someplace else who come back because they want to be with their family and visit the festival,” Glaser said.

“Everybody tries their best to make the best kolaches possible,” said Paula Fries, who has volunteered to bake kolaches at the church for over 30 years. Fries said working at the festival all these years has been a great way to interact with members of her parish.

“You get used to sitting next to the same people at church, and you don’t always get to know all the other people that go to the parish,” Fries said. “It’s a nice team-building opportunity and an opportunity to connect with others you might not normally connect with.”

Comments: (319) 265-6889; cooper.worth@thegazette.com