Our Lady Queen of Peace prepares for annual festa
Food might be what draws people to one annual festa, but a passion is what has kept the celebration churning out the baked goodies many crave.
Our Lady Queen of Peace Church held its annual festa from Friday, Aug. 12, to Sunday, Aug. 14. There was an abundance of its well-known Italian food and baked goods. The event also focuses on family fun, which includes a raffle, games and carnival rides. Each night there will be a main band performing, which is Grand Central on Friday and Sunday and Capri on Saturday, but there are also special performances throughout the day. Friday evening will also have fireworks, which is a feature started two years ago.
How much preparation goes into running the festa might surprise some, with planning for each year’s festa beginning in January. It starts out with monthly meetings and moves to weekly and then daily meetings as the festa nears the final week. The baked goods also yield the most profit and all funds raised go towards the church for things such as repairs.
We have a Rosary Society here and in April they have a pantry shower for us and they have been doing it for the last six years, said Shirley Milano, a volunteer behind the baked goods. `If it wasn’t for them we would be looking for money.`
One way to help cut down expenses is festa committee started to buy cooking supplies in bulk, said Milano, such as flour and sugar. There is also only one brand of flour used for bake goods too, said Milano, which is Gold Medal. She said there was a difference in quality of the baked goods when another brand was used side by side.
`A lot of these recipes go way back,` said Milano.
Some of the baked good include lemon drops, rosette cookies, ricotta cookies, anise cookies, lemon biscotti and almond biscotti with a chocolate drizzle. Also, one of the fastest sellers is the classic chocolate chip cookie, said Milano. This year approximately 6,658 cookies were made for the festa.
`The chocolate chips are one that we put in last year and we just can’t keep them. They are sold out by Saturday,` she said.
Last year, it sold around 2,800 pizza frittas, also known as fried dough, which is another food item that can have people waiting in line for the festa treat. Besides getting the needed ingredients, said Pat Belden, there isn’t too much prep work to do with it.
`We make the dough right here in the kitchen, so it is on demand. We have a lot of ladies that work very dedicated. It takes a lot of people to put it together,` said Belden.
Moving away from the sweeter side, there are a variety of hearty meals to choose from, which include the 4,000 meatballs made in May. The sauce is made the week before the event.
`Cavatelli and meatball is the most popular, but they are all very popular,` said Anita Farina.
To help out with all of the massive storage, cooling and thawing needs the week before the event, Price Chopper donated one of their refrigeration trucks to help out. This isn’t the first time they’ve had the welcomed additional space. They also supply the generator to run the refrigerated storage, said Farina. There are a total of 45 businesses donating to the event.
`Price Chopper is a wonderful proponent for community work. They do help us in other ways too, too many to mention,` said Donna Denny.
After filling up on some food, there are rides and games to enjoy. All of the games were either made or bought by the church and the youth ministry runs the games. The children are also able to earn community hours for volunteering at the festa. Altogether there are more than 300 people volunteering at the event.
`We really have rides for all ages. We have them for the little kids with the big slides and then we have it for the teens and we also have a lot of kids games as well, so it is very diverse.`
Last year was the church’s most successful festa to date and the committee members are hoping this year only proves more successful. The amount of prizes for the raffle is also higher than last, so there is even more to win.
One thing seems unchanged over the years, because several committee members said in unison `The food is the same.“
