Italian festival returning to New Kensington; Vandergrift Festa canceled

One Italian festival is returning to the Alle-Kiski Valley, while another has been canceled, possibly for good.

The 41st annual Festa Italiana will be held Friday and Saturday at Mount St. Peter Roman Catholic Church in New Kensington. The festa, not held since 2019, was replaced by drive-thru lasagna dinners in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Festa Italiana di Vandergrift, traditionally held in August, has not been staged since 2019 because of the pandemic and has been canceled indefinitely, borough Councilwoman Marilee Kessler said.

In announcing they would no longer be producing the event, the Vandergrift committee said its small group of members “has become old and tired and cannot continue to perform the large amount of work needed to properly execute the Festa.”

They considered options including holding a smaller event “but determined that we could not effectively execute an event at the quality level needed to adequately honor our ancestors and Italian heritage; anything we could present would be a shadow of the fabulous Festas held over the years,” the notice says.

The Putignano family has hosted the Vandergrift festival in Kennedy Park. Organizer Brian Putignano was not available for comment.

The Mount St. Peter festival apparently also was in danger of ending, said Karen Mitchell of New Kensington, who has been involved with the event for about 15 years and is coordinating it for the first time this year.

“They were talking about not doing it anymore, and I just wanted to see it come back,” she said. “I figured if I wanted it to come back, then I need to step up and not wait for somebody else.”

While returning, the Mount St. Peter festa has been scaled back from three days to two. Though Mitchell said they cut back on some of the food, the offerings still will include homemade dishes such as lasagna, spaghetti, sausage and meatball sandwiches, polenta, pizza, cannoli and gelato.

“We were kind of going to scale it down, but it just grew and grew,” she said. “It’s almost back to the way it was.”

A strolling accordion player, Pat Septak, will play Friday night, and the John Murphy Band will play Saturday. There will be games for children and adults, a bake sale and a basket raffle.

“It’s going to be fun,” Mitchell said. “I think people are looking forward to getting together in the community with each other. They want to get out again.”

Mitchell said there are more than a dozen “captains,” each in charge of their own area of the festival, working to make it happen.

“I have a lot of people helping and giving me advice. I’m really grateful for everybody that’s stepped up and helped,” she said. “We’re so blessed to have the people that we have.

“And I just honestly think that this is what we need.”