Aug 14, 2006 By Rebekah Sungala 3 min read

Dressed in a cream outfit accented with red and green, Lorraine Felix Bulotta twirled ribbons through the air as she danced on the sidewalks during the 23rd annual Fayette Italian Heritage Festival. Referring to herself as “100 percent Italian,” the Uniontown woman, who attended the event with several family members, swayed back and forth to the live accordion music, never missing a beat despite her age.

“I can’t sit still,” she said.

Bulotta, who has attended every Italian festival ever held in downtown Uniontown, said she wouldn’t miss the event for anything.

The festival is an opportunity to visit with old friends, dance to good music and eat homemade food, all things Bulotta said she doesn’t get to do as often now that she’s older and lives alone.

Bulotta showed off a red, green and white skirt she sewed for her 1-year-old granddaughter as she and a group of women waited for the tarantella, music for a southern Italian dance, to be played.

Shana Janco, 1, of Pittsburgh represented the fourth generation of Bulotta women at the Italian festival.

For as far back as he can remember, Fayette Italian Heritage Festival Chairman Ron Romeo said the Bulotta family has always been represented at the yearly event.

“They have never missed a festival,” he said.

Romeo said the festival this year drew the largest crowd since he started organizing the event three to four years ago.

The festival is sponsored by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Order Sons of Italy in America, which encompasses the Uniontown, Connellsville, Brownsville, Perryopolis and Fairchance area.

Romeo said the festival seems to become more popular every year, with more and more people traveling from out of the area to attend the event.

An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people attended this year’s festival, compared to the 5,000 to 6,000 who attended last year’s.

Romeo said more than 25 vendors were on site, in addition to numerous craft booths.

“We try to make this event bigger every year,” he said.

Carl DellaPenna of Grindstone, an Italian festival committee member, said 130 billboards were put up along several roadways.

“We hit all the hotspots,” he said, noting that the advertising seemed to work, since people traveled from Pittsburgh to attend the festival.

At the Brownsville Sons of Italy food booth, people were lined up to sample the homemade Italian cuisine.

Richard Quarzo, president of the Frank Ricco Lodge No. 731 in Brownsville, said lodge members made 1,200 meatballs and cooked 150 pounds of spaghetti, 100 pounds of tortellini and 300 pounds of sausage, among other items.

“It takes a whole crew of guys all week to cook everything,” he said.

Lou Otto, lodge member and general chairman of the project, said their booth sold out of tortellini by 2:30 p.m.

“We made four times more this year than we made last year, and we still sold out,” he said, noting that none of it would have been possible without help from the women’s lodge, officially known as the Rose Grabaldi Lodge No. 1818.

Otto said he was too busy serving food Sunday to leave the booth but said he thinks this festival is the best attended in several years.

“If the line of people at just our booth is any indication, it must be one heck of a festival,” he said.

Romeo said he was pleased with the turn out and is determined to make next years’ Italian festival even more of a success.

“We’re on a roll now,” he said.