Photo: Jared Brosnan/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — St. Anthony’s Feast prepares to kick off its 106th annual celebration in the North End. Festivities are set to begin at 5 P.M. on Thursday.
Streets will be filled with Italian music and food vendors until Sunday night, complete with events to enjoy.
Feast Chairman Joe DiGirolamo spoke about the long-running event and how it came to be.
“There’s a town called Montefalcione, when they settled here on Endicott Street, that turned out margin streets, basically they brought their traditions with them,” said DiGirolamo. “Their patron saint of that town was St. Anthony, they brought it here, and they’ve been celebrating it since 1919.”
On Sunday, a ten-hour procession marches the statue of St. Anthony through the North End, helping raise funds to go towards local charities and the neighborhood.
“When you give to us, we give back,” said Feast Trustee Jason Aluia. “And I think that’s what the north end knows, because they know we're going to keep portraying to our saint all year long, but also donate back to the neighborhood.”
Feast Committee member Michael Bosco spoke on other exciting proceedings at the Feast.
“Basically, anytime you’re down here during the festival, there's music pumping through the streets,” said Bosco. We do pause the music on Saturday at five o’clock for our outdoor Mass, we'll have relics of St. Anthony from Italy joining us this year, and those will be on display most of the weekend as well as after the Mass on Saturday afternoon.”
More information on St. Anthony’s Feast can be found on their website here.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Jared Brosnan (@JaredBrosnanWBZ) reports.