LYNDORA — The thick aroma of butter, onions and dough permeated the basement kitchen at St. Andrew Orthodox Church Friday morning, where 20 church members and volunteers feverishly pinched 400 dozen pierogies to sell for the holidays.

The church has been selling the Eastern European dumplings as a fundraiser for more than 50 years.

And Helen “Babe” Jankovich of Highfield has been making pierogies for the church since the fundraisers began. Now 89 years young, she dons a red apron that reads “pierogi queen.” And fellow volunteers often call her as such.

“We're worker bees; you're the pierogi queen,” said Nick Russin of Lyndora.

Babe cracked a meek smile.

“When we started making them, we charged 75 cents a dozen,” she said.

The church now sells potato- and cheese-filled pierogies for $6.50 a dozen. The church sells the pierogies once every month or two and usually sells around 280 dozen. But because of the upcoming holiday, its orders were on the upswing.

Babe is the queen not only because of her seniority, but because she's known for recruiting numerous family members and friends to volunteer.

“As soon as we retired, we got the phone call,” said Toni Lee Prenovitz of Chicora, who is Babe's niece through marriage. “They never take no for an answer.”

“We can't fire anyone,” Babe joked. “We need all of the help we can get.”

Mass-producing the crescent-shaped dumplings is a rigorous three-day process: Last Wednesday, onions were sautéed, and 200 pounds of potatoes were peeled, boiled and mashed. Thursday, the filling was made and shaped into 400 dozen balls. And on Friday, the dough was made with at least 25 bags of flour and 30 dozen eggs, and the pierogies were pinched together and boiled to sell that afternoon.

Volunteers started filtering in around 6 and 7 a.m. Friday to pinch the pierogies.

“We have a lot of fun,” said Andrew Musko, 86, of Lyndora, who's been making them for 40 or 45 years. “It's not housework.”

“It gets me out of the house,” said Anna Mularchik of Homeacre. “And you get the latest gossip,” she whispered.

Helping the church, seeing old friends and enjoying the tradition as a social event are all reasons why volunteers keep coming back. And of course, getting to eat leftover pierogies helps, too.

“I come because of the people,” said Stella DeLess, 89, of Butler Township. “I like the fellowship of everybody. You can see we're having a good time making these. It's a social thing.”

DeLess, along with a few others, help making pierogies at multiple local churches.

While most of the volunteers sat at long tables and pinched the dumplings together, there are other roles in the pierogi-making assembly line. A few volunteers cooked the pierogies and put them into takeout containers, while others worked on dough preparation.

“We call this rolling in the dough,” quipped George Milich, 86, of Franklin Township, with a hunk of pierogi dough in his hands. “Not the green stuff.”

He cuts dough into pieces to run through a dough presser, while another volunteer cut the flattened dough into small circles.

Milich grew up in Lyndora and has been a lifelong St. Andrew Orthodox Church member. He was baptized there in 1929.

Over the years, church attendance has fallen. He's convinced the pierogies are one of the few things that's keeping its doors open.

“Without these ladies, the church would've been shut down years ago,” Milich said. “They're the backbone of the church.”