enlarge Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Luke Andrews, 5, and Maggie Andrews, 3, dance to Italian music during the 84th annual Italian Bazaar at St. Peter’s in Portland on Saturday. The bazaar is the longest continuously running street festival in the city, co-chair Ken Giaquinto said.

PORTLAND — The three-day Italian festival at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in the East End is a testament to far more than history, although it's certainly that.

St. Peter's 84th annual Italian Bazaar that celebrates the feasts of the Assumption and St. Rocco, a patron saint of the sick who is particularly venerated in Italy, kicked off in earnest Saturday and continues today.

The Italian bazaar began in 1926 and is the longest continuously running street festival in Portland, co-chair Ken Giaquinto said.

It is held in front of the stately brick church that is home to Portland's first Italian Catholic parish, which was founded in 1911. One booth along Fore Street displays 90-year-old photographs of former parishioners, as well as church articles published in the Daily Eastern Argus in 1919. Portlanders at the festival talk about memories of what's remained unchanged.

Yet first and foremost, this deeply rooted Portland tradition is about religion, family and community, Giaquinto said.

"It started as an opportunity to bring folks together. But it raises money for the Italian Catholic community. There are no outside vendors. It's all run by parishioners.

"There are hundreds of women who came here to make cookies; men who come in and cut sausage and peppers. It takes six months of planning," Giaquinto said.

Longtime parishioners, schoolmates and native Portlanders return to the festival each year. Mike Russo, also a co-chair, said each year the festival gets bigger.

"I think more and more people are going back to their heritage," Giaquinto mused.

But many city natives, like Jack Gardner, say they make the festival part of their homecoming to Maine because of the solidarity within this Italian parish.

"This is a childhood memory. I went to Cathedral (parish). But this was a wonderful parish," said Gardner, 57, of Mount Laurel, N.J.

Like many street festivals, there's a football toss, a wheel of chance and a face-painting booth. But there's also the beat of Italian songs, and the red, white and green flags lining the street gives this block-long festival a genuine European feel.

However, it is the human element – the long tables full of neighbors eating pizza or the volunteers helping at games – that speaks to the unity within this parish.

"The nice thing is it really makes it a family event. You can really give your child $5, and they can play games for a while. That's what is really important," said Mike Liampi, a parishioner of Italian descent.

The money raised by the festival – as much as $60,000 last year, Giaquinto said – goes to help fund the parochial educations of children of the parish. And that cause, too, inspires the festive spirit here, Liampi said.

The St. Peter's parishioners believe the warmth of their annual celebration is as old as the festival itself.

"Growing up, there were three-story flats with Italian families. Urban renewal uprooted many of them. But this is still alive," Gardner said. "It's great. The festival still pretty much looks the same as it did when I was 10."

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at:

dfleming@pressherald.com