Yum! Annual Italian Feast in Verplanck Returns for 99th Year
After being cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, the longest running Italian feast in the Hudson Valley is returning to Verplanck next week for five days of fun and food.
The 99th Annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel Italian Feast will take place from Wednesday, July 14 through Sunday, July 18 on Eighth Street and Highland Avenue where the smell of sausage and peppers, Zeppoles and other Italian delicacies will draw thousands of visitors in.
“The annual festival of the Our lady of Mount Carmel is a tradition that goes back many hundreds of years in Southern Italy and was brought to Verplanck by the immigrants who arrived here between 1890 and 1920 to work in the brickyards and stone quarry,” said Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society Vice President Mike Letteri. “Those men created this society to assist families in time of need and now, we find the society itself is in need.”
The Catholic feast day of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is July 16, which is why the Mt. Carmel Society has held their festival the third weekend in July since 1922. One of the highlights of the festival is an Italian mass at 3:30 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church on Sunday, followed by a procession with the members of the Mt. Carmel Society carrying a statue of the saint. Later that night, an extravagant fireworks display closes out the feast.
Besides food and beverages, there are also carnival rides, games, novelties and nightly music entertainment. Discount ride bracelets are available with a coupon that can be found at local merchants.
“The Big Tarantella” dance, billed as the world’s largest, is slated to take place Saturday night at 10 p.m. The feast opens every night at 6 p.m., other than Sunday, when it opens at 5.
The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society is a non-profit organization that makes donations to many local charities and causes, but faced financial hardship last year with the feast and other fundraisers postponed, along with its inability to rent its banquet hall.
As a result, a GoFundMe site has been set up to assist the organization in raising funds for next year’s 100th celebration. For more information, visit the Mt. Carmel website at www.OLMCV.org, or visit www.gofundme.com/f/our-lady-of-mt-carmel-italian-feast.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
