A message to our members

January 2022

Dear Members of the Donauschwaben’s German American Cultural Center,

Happy New Year! It is my hope that the new year has greeted you in good health and good spirits. I sincerely hope 2022 is a better year than the previous two years. There is much to share, and much to be thankful for! Please allow me to share many bits of information as we start down the road that is 2022.

In an effort to keep our members well informed, Lenau Park, represented by the Board and all our Group Leaders, is pleased to roll out “Der Trommler” Newsletter in its new format which we plan to distribute on February 27th. I want to thank our previous publishers, Ingrid and Bob Pejsa, for their efforts as “Der Trommler” got off the ground and then published for several years. They did a wonderful job and invested countless hours of time in the publication. Our approach to information gathering and formatting for the newsletter has changed, but the goal to send it out quarterly remains the same. We have asked our various group leaders and group presidents to contribute newsworthy items when warranted. Adding information to the newsletter is optional for our groups, but I am sure that they will be excited to share their events and newsworthy items. I will continue to provide an overall update on our organization. You will also hear from Marianne Buechler, our Director of Operations, who will keep you informed on topics such as Special Events, Prost, and our wonderful staff.

With that in mind, let me say for the record just how great it is to be open again. We’ve been open since Spring of 2021, and many of our groups have resumed their usual practice schedules or activities. We have dancers, singers, musicians, German School students, soccer players, cardplayers, skiers, and bowlers regularly taking part in their meetings or group activities, and even though they are on break now, tennis resumed over the summer months. Our Wednesday workers never really took a break and have continued in their usual vital contributions. They are always looking for new volunteers. They worked hard throughout the months when we were closed and continue to be an important and valued part of our organization.

The summer months of 2021 kept us very busy with Oktoberfest and the Landestreffen events taking place on three consecutive weekends in August and into September. Both of these events require almost a year’s worth of planning. I cannot express just how many times I have wished for a crystal ball over these last two years. The pandemic made it impossible to decide, for sure, that we would be able to have these events while trying to predict when State of Ohio mandates regarding festivals might change, and what Covid infection rates might look like when it was time for the events to take place. The availability and effectiveness of the vaccines made the decision easier by springtime, but neither event was confirmed until late April early May of 2021. Over the following months, our staff, board, and volunteers, squeezed a year’s worth of work into just three short months, a monumental task for which all should be commended. All three weekends were successful and it was especially nice to see the return of our members and to have visitors from Donauschwaben clubs across the USA.

Even though we have been open since last spring, things are not back to normal. No one is sure when they will be, but we are doing our best to keep everything working as well as possible. We have had the same issues as many businesses across the country with staffing shortages and supply chain disruptions. The prices you see at the grocery stores are impacting us as well as all our food orders cost a lot more than they did before the pandemic. There are times when certain items are simply not available. For example, for a short time, we couldn’t purchase chicken tenders or paper napkins for the restaurant, and wings are still very hard to get. It really is hit or miss on the availability items and it’s hard to guess what might be in short supply in the coming weeks. Several of our staff members contracted the Omicron variant in the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas and through to the New Year. We have monitored exposures and purchased test kits to help make sure that no one is working while they are ill. We had several staff missing work for extended periods of time. The remaining staff had to pick up the extra hours, but there have been times when we just had to open while short-handed or staff had to work a lot of overtime. Neither of those situations are ideal, but it is our current reality. Our staff works very hard to make your visits to Lenau Park pleasant and memorable. We ask for your continued patience and grace.

Our Holzer Halle is also open and we are holding events. Alongside the usual weddings, groups are able to schedule and hold their events in the main hall if they choose to do so. This is dependent on each group and their ability to plan, organize, and get volunteers for an event. Since I am also the Jugendgruppe Leader, I will use Schwabenball as an example. We last held Schwabenball in 2019. In 2020, there was a ban on large gatherings, and in 2021 we were just figuring out how to get our dancers back to Lenau Park and practicing. We are currently planning for April 2022. The dancers have been back to practice for almost a year and parents are once again actively helping with the planning for this event. Therefore, the Jugendgruppe will have Schwabenball this year. Some of our groups are not quite at this point. They either do not have enough participants or enough volunteers available and cannot commit to holding an event. There are traditional events that groups sponsor which will not take place this year for various reasons which are entirely at the discretion of the sponsoring group leaders. On the other hand, members can look forward to attending the Bunny Brunch, Schwabenball, and Jägerfest, all in the month of April! The DGACC makes the decision on events like the Annual Meeting or Oktoberfest, but not on group events like Schwabenball or the Car Show. I hope to have clarified this point because we have received many inquiries about why events are canceled, and most of the time, it’s because the sponsoring group chose to do so for any one of the many reasons listed above.

We are also pleased to announce that we are planning for a February 25th start to Fish Fry. We did hold a Fish Fry in 2021 as a take-out operation with great success. This year, we plan to bring back the dine in option. With the current Omicron variant making headlines, we anticipate fewer dine-in customers and a continued interest in the take-out option, but we will have to remain flexible and adjust to the needs of our customers. This much is certain, Fish Fry will look very different as we try to keep diners socially distanced and our staff/volunteers safe. It is harder to get volunteers because many are afraid of catching Covid and then missing work or other important events, so we will have to work with a limited number of volunteers providing service in the main hall. To that end, we will be moving to the use of a buffet line instead of the usual table service as we will simply be too short-handed. Our planning is focused on safety, service, and delicious food. Tables will be spread out in the main hall and dine in customers will order, pay, and eat in the main hall. Take out customers will order and receive their orders in the big lobby. This is just one way to limit the number of people gathered in any one place in an effort to maintain safety for all. Much continues to go into the planning, but we have to adjust to the current situation and do the best we can with the resources we have available. Please be aware, none of this is easy. Collaboratively, our board and our staff have weighed many options and continue to work towards finding ways to hold events under the current conditions. We ask for your patience and support. Please look for updates in the coming weeks.

Getting back to normal isn’t easy. Looking around, I see very few things that have returned to the normal we were used to pre-pandemic. I know it’s what everyone longs for, but we may all have to get used to a new normal where we individually evaluate our risks when participating in various tasks or events and make decisions based on that risk. As a teacher, I can attest that school is not normal. As a citizen, I see masked individuals everywhere I go and know far too many people who have fallen ill from Covid, some did not survive. I know people who continue to work from home relatively risk free, and then I know those who are in healthcare and are completely overwhelmed. I know people who have lost jobs, but who have also found new ones. I also see so many businesses that have closed and are gone for good. I worry about my family members and friends, and I assume many of you do too. Again, I find myself wishing for that crystal ball.

As I bring this to a close, I want to impress upon everyone that we are very fortunate. We have, for now, survived what I hope to be the worst of this pandemic. It could get worse, or some other disaster could strike, and these are all possibilities we have to acknowledge and do our best to plan for. We never imagined a pandemic shutting everything down, yet here we are. Planning for the unknown is very difficult, and that’s an understatement. We have found ourselves navigating in unfamiliar territory countless times throughout these last two years and we’re still here, and we are okay. The DGACC / Lenau Park is open for our members and for business. Far too many places are not. To survive, we relied on our savings and by managing costs, because even while closed, we had expenses. Our Director of Operations, Marianne Buechler, was able to successfully get some of the government relief funds after submitting long and complicated applications, for which we should all be thankful. Our Donauschwaben culture is known for the ability to survive when times are hard, to sacrifice now in order to benefit later, to be frugal and thrifty, and to be steadfast in our commitments to each other and our community. There is no way to make up the income that was lost during the closure, so we have to move forward slowly and work to get back to where we once were financially. In the same way, we must also move forward slowly and work to get back to where we once were socially, whether we are at Lenau Park or anywhere else. I believe that we can get through this together. These last two years have been a challenge for the officers and staff working to keep our organization viable. Please know that during this time, we have worked hard to make the best decisions possible with the information available, and without a crystal ball. We hope to see more of you back at Lenau Park in the near future. We appreciate your concerns and your support, and thank you for your continued interest in the future of our organization.

Sent on behalf of our DGACC Board Margot Maurer