Storozynski Elected President of Kosciuszko Foundation

Founded in 1925, the Kosciuszko Foundation promotes and strengthens the understanding and friendship between Poland and the United States through educational, scientific and cultural exchanges. It awards fellowships and grants to graduate students, scholars, scientists, professionals and artists, and helps to increase the visibility of Polish culture by sponsoring events, publications, film festivals and performing arts.

Mr. Sulimirski said, “Alex Storozynski is the former chairman of the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with two decades of experience writing about New York issues as a journalist. He also has written a great deal about Polish political, historical and cultural issues. Mr. Storozynski will continue to spread the word about the important mission of the Kosciuszko Foundation and continue the important work that was begun by Joseph Gore.”

Mr. Storozynski hailed Mr. Gore’s achievements. “Joseph Gore has brought gravitas and sophistication to the Kosciuszko Foundation for more than two decades. He has changed the lives of scores of scholars and students who have received scholarships from the Foundation. He has helped teach Americans about the rich culture and history of Poland. Mr. Gore is a tough act to follow,” said Mr. Storozynski.

Mr. Gore said, “The Foundation is facing enormous challenges due to the down turn of the economy and we will need a great deal of help from our current members. It will also have to find new sources of donations and funding to continue the Foundation’s important work.”

The Kosciuszko Foundation began as the Polish American Scholarship Committee, launched in 1923 by Dr. Stephen Mizwa to bring students to Polish students to American universities. Dr. Mizwa met Dr. Henry Noble McCracken, President of Vassar College, who had recently returned from a visit to Poland. Eventually, the two men enlarged the Committee’s mission. In December 1925, the Committee was incorporated as the Kosciuszko Foundation in honor of the Polish military hero who had come to fight in the American War of Independence in 1776.

“Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a prince of tolerance who fought for the rights of African Slaves, Native Americans as well as Poland’s Serfs and Jews,” said Mr. Storozynski. “Kosciuszko was a hero of two continents and donated his last will and testament to the manumission and education of slaves in America. It is fitting that this foundation is named after him.”

Mr. Storozynski has written a biography of Kosciuszko, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Era of Revolution, which will be published in April 2009 by St. Martin’s Press.

For more than 80 years the Kosciuszko Foundation’s activities have grown to include scholarship and exchange programs, the Teaching English in Poland program, and cultural programs at its New York townhouse headquarters and throughout the country. It has chapters in eight other cities and members across the nation and around the world. Many of its grantees occupy important positions in Polish academic life. Thanks to its members and benefactors, the Foundation is able to disburse $1 million annually to Polish Americans and others involved in Polish studies.

It has continued through the difficulties of the Depression, World War Two, and decades of Communist rule. It shall continue in the tradition of its namesake, General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, to enrich the educational and cultural lives of both America and Poland with the support of individuals, corporations, and foundations.
 
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Alex Storozynski Bio
Alex Storozynski is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a former member of the New York Daily News editorial board, founding editor of amNewYork and former city editor of the New York Sun. He has also been published in the European edition of The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Newsday and other publications.

His biography of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Era of Revolution, will be published in April 2009 by St. Martin’s Press, and his essay “From Serfdom to Freedom: Polish Catholics Find A Refuge,” was published in the book Catholics in New York, Society Culture, and Politics, 1808-1946, to coincide with the exhibit on Catholics at the Museum of the History of New York.

Storozynski has also served as chairman and vice-chairman of the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union, which has more than $1 billion in assets and 70,000 members, making it the largest ethnic credit union in the United States. He is a frequent guest on New York’s Polish radio stations and a contributor to Polskie Radio 1, the largest radio station in Poland.

From 1985-87, Storozynski was a post-graduate fellow at the University of Warsaw, during which time he worked as a researcher for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe, interviewing Lech Walesa and other Solidarity activists who helped overturn Communism in Eastern Europe. He has a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and Bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Storozynski was also the editor of Empire State Report, the magazine of politics and public policy in New York, and has written speeches for Democrats and Republicans in state politics.

In 2006, Storozynski traveled to Iraq to write about the Polish troops running the multinational zone in the provinces of Diwaniyah and Wasit near the Iranian border. More recently he interviewed Polish President Lech Kaczynski for the New York Sun.

In 2004, the Polish magazine Przegląd called Storozynski “a new type of leader in the Polish community,” and even though he was born in Brooklyn, they named him one of the “100 most influential Poles living abroad.”  In 2005, Polish-American World named him “Man of the Year.” In 2006, the President of Poland awarded him with the “Gold Cross of Service” for his articles about Poland. And in 2007 the American Center of Polish Culture in Washington, D.C. awarded him for his “distinguished achievement in the field of journalism.”

In 1991, Columbia University sent him to lecture at Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He has given lectures about Kosciuszko at West Point, the University of Detroit and Macomb Center for the Performing Arts in Michigan. Over the years he has appeared in various radio and television broadcasts in New York and Europe.




While at the Daily News Storozynski wrote editorials and op-ed columns on complex public policy issues that brought about changes in the lives of all New Yorkers. Storozynski was a member of the editorial board team which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, 1999 George Polk Award, the 1999 Sigma Delta Chi Award, the 1999 and 2001 Deadline Club Award, Associated Press editorial writing awards 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000, and the 1997 and 2001 Silurian Awards for editorial writing.