LAWRENCE — The festival of a lifetime came and went in 2023 — the 100th Feast of the Three Saints.
For the centennial celebration, the St. Alfio Society, which plans, organizes and presents the feasts, recruited a lengthy list of vendors, booked entertainers for two large stages and hosted a cultural corner under the marquee tent at Common and Union streets.
The society brought in the 33-member Three Saints Sicilian (Tre Santi Siciliani) Orchestra.
Fittingly, they came here from the Trecastagni region, from which Italian immigrants first carried the Saints’ tradition to Lawrence a century ago.
St. Alfio Society President Tony Palmisano declared the 2023 Labor Day weekend festival an absolute success, everything he had hoped it would be.
The question becomes, after all the anniversary singing and cheering and praying and offerings and eating and dancing, what do you do in 2024?
How can you follow a festival that was years in the making?
The answer is: you host the 101st in keeping with the feast’s guiding lights — faith, fellowship and philanthropy.
“The principles (the Society) was founded on are the same principles today,” Palmisano said earlier. “Keeping the traditions alive — of our Italian culture and our faith in the martyred saints.”