SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) — Scranton is getting ready to celebrate a major milestone for one of its biggest traditions.
La Festa Italiana turns 50 this year, bringing Italian food, culture and thousands of people to Courthouse Square over Labor Day weekend.
On parade day in Scranton, everyone is Irish. But on La Festa weekend, everyone is Italian.
And this year, Scranton’s Italian-American community is celebrating five decades of tradition.
“This is something that’s become a time-honored tradition,” said Joe Guido, Vice President of La Festa Italiana. “People look forward to this every year, kind of marks the end of summer. Every year we bring about 140,000 people. It’s great for the local economy, so there’s a lot of reasons, but people do seem to love it. It’s a tradition.”
The festival began in 1976, during the nation’s bicentennial, as a way for Scranton’s Italian-American community to give the city a gift that would keep giving.
Fifty years later, that gift has grown into a four-day celebration featuring more than 70 vendors, Italian food, music, entertainment and activities for families.
Preparations began days before the festival officially gets underway, with tents and electricians coming in first. Now, vendors are moving in and making sure they have everything they need for the crowds.
For longtime vendor Pat Revello, who has been part of La Festa for more than a decade, the work starts long before festival weekend.
“It’s a chance to see the vendors all around us and as you can see now, they’re here all week preparing,” said Revello. “They’re preparing months in advance with their product. There’s a lot of work that goes into this. It’s just not the four days that we’re here.”
Revello says the final days before the festival are when the real work begins.
“Yesterday and today is the hard part. Getting ready tomorrow, that’s the hard part. Once the people show up and you have a whole bunch of great workers, then it’s easy. It’s the preparation and making sure that you have everything like, do I have that spoon? Do I have that knife?”
For Matt Gilbert, executive chef for 16th Ward and Kevin’s on Penn, this is only the second year participating in La Festa, but the experience has already made an impression.
“It looks unbelievable,” said Gilbert “It looks like waves and waves and waves of people while you’re standing in that tent and it gets to be a little overwhelming, but it’s a lot of fun.”
This year, Gilbert’s team will serve breadsticks, homemade tiramisu and cannoli nachos, along with food from Kevin’s, which has not yet opened in Scranton but will preview some of its offerings at the festival.
Last year, the team served garlic knots and went through more than 4,000 garlic knots during preparation.
And for a business that’s relatively new to Scranton, Gilbert says La Festa has been another way the community has made them feel at home.
“We’re a little bit new to town, but Scranton has a really warm way of welcoming people, especially when it comes to an event like this,” said Gilbert.
The festival is organized by a committee of about 12 people, who spend much of the year apart before coming together to put on the event.
“Italians are very passionate. This organization is very passionate about this festival,” said Guido. “We do take pride in putting it on and the fact that it’s a family-oriented festival. It’s a clean festival and there’s a lot to do. We’re just proud of all of it.”
And after 50 years, that sense of family and community is still at the heart of La Festa Italiana.
“This committee, we don’t see each other practically all year. Then we come together like one big family. So, the camaraderie is there. We all pull together and we make this work,” said Guido.
La Festa Italiana runs through Labor Day weekend in Courthouse Square, celebrating 50 years of Italian culture, food and community in downtown Scranton.
