Italian music, food attracts crowd downtown
Liz Oktela couldn’t get enough of the Fayette Italian Music & Food Festival Sunday afternoon. Dancing on the center of Uniontown’s Main Street, the 76-year-old city woman delighted in the tunes of Frankie Capri, who performed live in front of the State Theatre Center for the Arts.
“I do this all the time,” said Oktela, continuing her soft-step moves and enticing others on the street to do the same.
Oktela’s dancing was reminiscent of how the festival used to be. Music, dancing in the streets, reunions of people who hadn’t been back home for years, and perhaps most importantly, good food revived the town for a weekend, according to literature on the event’s history.
In October 1980, downtown Uniontown played host to the first ever Fayette Italian Festival, in what organizers hoped would be the “greatest outdoor festival that ever hit downtown Uniontown.”
The event began as a major fund-raiser for the Uniontown Sons of Italy Lodge 231 when the building collapsed because of a heavy snowfall in the winter of 1979.
It hasn’t been back on Main Street since 1986, but the tradition was revived Sunday, with 67-degree weather just like that experienced in 1980, according to the chairman of the event, Ron Romeo.
“Thanks to the city for allowing us to have it and thanks for the people for attending and thank God for the weather,” Romeo said. “And we’re lucky the Steelers didn’t play.”
Before the day was half complete, 4,000 people – families, older couples, children and teenagers – milled around the assortment of red-roofed tents with vendors beneath selling crafts, flowers, lemonade and Italian food.
A made-over downtown only increased the festival’s attendance, Romeo said.
As they planned their route on a city map across the street from the flowing fountains, Kathy and Albert Kozusko of Rostraver said they were impressed with the revitalization. It was the first time the couple was in the city since its makeover, and the festival gave them a reason to check it out.
“It’s beautiful,” Kathy said. “They did a wonderful job.”
“We’ll definitely come back to explore,” Albert said.
Relaxing in a foldout chair after munching on chicken and fries, rigatonis and meatballs and the Italian dessert cannoli throughout the day, Peggy Jacobs of Uniontown said the festival was “really nice” and “downtown was beautiful.”
“It used to be pretty bad. Now it’s beautiful,” she said.
At the request of officials, the festival left downtown in 1986. Now, with a revamped city, things look like they are starting anew, according to Romeo.
“It’s a new mindset of city council, of county government and of what’s going on in the town over the governor and Joe Hardy giving us monies,” Romeo said. “And after three other successful events, they want something here every day. They want things to happen.”
And Romeo plans to keep up with city officials’ requests.
Hoping a new legacy has begun within a downtown expected to only grow, Romeo said next year’s event will expand further.
He hopes it will return to what it once was back in 1980: a two-day celebration in August that marks the Italian and Catholic holiday the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, complete with a procession and a Mass in addition to the food, music and fun that makes the celebration a success.
The State Theatre Center for the Arts and the Pennsylvania State Sons of Italy sponsored and will benefit from this year’s festival. Event proceeds will be earmarked for operating capital for the State Theatre, and for Alzheimer’s and Cooley’s Anemia research and state scholarships distributed each year at the State Order of the Sons of Italy.
“This will be kind of capping off the season,” Romeo said. “And, yes, it’s a success.”