The American Cancer Society will have a food stand at the Carbon County Fair for the first time this year.

Joe Krushinsky, chairman of the Cancer Telethon, said fair goers are in for a treat as volunteers will be cooking up bleenies, also known as potato pancakes.

“The potato pancakes we will prepare at the fair are the same as people buy at St Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in McAdoo, when they have their festival. We use the same fryers, same utensils, same batter. Some of the St. Mary’s parishioners will be volunteering with us,” Krushinsky said.

He couldn’t address the ethnic history. “I just know people love them,” he said.

“The local tradition of calling the potato pancake “bleenies” and anticipating their arrival at local church and community festivals has been memorialized in a polka composed and recorded by Brian Legutko, who is a member of the local band Toolshed Jack. The polka received a ton of media attention, has been viewed on YouTube many times, and gets regular play on The Magic Polka Machine with Joe Manjack on WMGH.

ACS volunteers are making their popular recipe. How people eat them comes down to individual preference.

“There seems to be a divide. There are the sour cream people, and the applesauce people. Those seem to be two popular toppings/sides,” Krushinsky said.

“Personally, I am a total sour cream guy. That said, at home, I like to kick it up a notch by sprinkling some dried dill weed on the sour cream,” he said.

Sometimes he just sprinkles black pepper on the potato pancake. “To each his own,” Krushinsky said.

He said the organization had a stand several years ago when they were selling the reprint of the original “Ask Your Neighbor” Cookbook.

“This is our first time the local American Cancer Society volunteers are selling food items,” Krushinsky said. “We are excited to be back, and we are especially excited that this fundraiser is in preparation for the return of a local Luminaria Service and Relay Walk.”

Krushinsky said the organizers of the fair are longtime American Cancer Society volunteers.

“A few times last year, they visited our Lansford Volunteer office when Telethon Volunteers and St. Mary’s Volunteers joined forces to participate in Lansford events like the Fall Festival and Moonlight Market,” Krushinsky said.

“They asked us if we would consider becoming the potato pancake vendor at the fair this year. I knew we wanted to do it, and that it would be a great fundraiser for us.”

As a fundraiser, Krushinsky expects to sell them for $2 each.

“We think that is fair, and we expect we’ll sell out,” he said.

A few good people are still needed to help at the stand.

Anyone interested can call 570-805-4555.

“You’ll join a great, fun team of people. You’ll be supporting the restart of the Relay for Life tradition here in Central Eastern Pennsylvania, and you will make people very happy with these tasty potato cakes!” he said.