Visitors to Epiphany Parish, Brick, enjoy the Italian Festival in August. Elise Stankus photo
Epiphany Parish’s annual Italian Festival is “really a ministry” that has become a summer tradition within the Brick community, said Kim Lorentzen, parish staffer and festival organizer.
This year’s event, Aug. 15-18 on the parish grounds, was the 24th festival. Each year, it continues to bring new religious education enrollment and provide a space to gather and enjoy quality time with family and friends while enjoying craft vendors, food trucks and amusement rides.
The festival is overall a community event, meant to provide a space for the Brick community and surrounding towns to come together and share experiences.
“But it’s really our Catholic faith on display,” said Lorentzen. “And it’s bringing people to us.”
Lorentzen said the volunteers who make the festival possible each year also strengthen the parish community.
“It’s generational, with all the different family members, and the younger parishioners feel the importance of their need here, especially as some of our original members are getting elderly,” she said.
“It used to be a carnival run by the Church,” she said. “It wasn’t really doing well and needed a new direction, a change. Most of the people that live here are from the North Jersey, New York area, the tristate area, so they know what those Italian street festivals are like. And it reminds them, so it draws a large part of the community in surrounding towns.”
Father Michael Santangelo, parish pastor, spoke on the value of other community organizations such as the police and fire departments being present at events like the Italian Festival.
“Other parts of the community are cooperating with us and find this to be a good opportunity for their outreach as well,” he said.
In addition to community building, the festival offers an opportunity to share the joys of the Catholic faith, said Sabrina Bezerra, who spoke about the means that the festival offers for evangelization to occur.
“We’re talking about Christ with all of these people,” Bezerra said.
“They come up to us, and it’s open dialogue. You know that you’re in a place that you can speak freely,” she said.