By Mary Stadnyk | Associate Editor

“How threatening can it be to come together to eat meatballs, spaghetti, salad and dessert?”

With a smile on his face, that was the question Msgr. Michael J. Walsh asked when he reflected on the number of parishioners who came to the pre-Lenten Festa Italiana held March 2 in the hall of St. James Church, Pennington. more than 600.

Photo Gallery: Festia Italiana in Pennington

More than pleased with the turnout that followed the 5 p.m. Vigil Mass in St. James Church, Msgr. Walsh and a number of parishioners said the event was yet another and much larger way to bring the three parishes that comprise the Catholic Community of Hopewell Valley together for an evening of food, fun and fellowship.

In the three years since St. James, St. George, Titusville, and St. Alphonsus, Hopewell, Parishes were linked through the diocesan Faith In Our Future initiative, the parishioners and parish staffs have pulled together and unceasingly worked to create one faith community by collaborating in areas of worship, faith formation, outreach to folks within their parishes as well as the wider community and socially. But the Italian Festival, which evolved into having to schedule two dinner seatings because of the number of people in attendance, proved to be the community’s largest social event to date.

“Our number one goal has been to strengthen and enliven our parishes,” said Paul Kimaid, chairman of the linked leadership council for the three parishes. “It’s vitally important that we work together. I think we’ve shown when we work together, we are stronger than when go our separate ways.”

Among the key helpers who collaborated for the Italian Festival were members of the Hopewell Council, Knights of Columbus, who cooked the main course of spaghetti and meatballs, and the 100 volunteers who formed groups and multitasked with handling duties setting the tables, selling tickets and cleaning up. Young people, including religious education students and youth group members helped with manning the dessert tables and refilling the bread baskets, while parish music minister Fred Proulx provided live entertainment with accompaniment by a keyboardist, drummer and saxophonist.

Lisa Conover of St. Alphonsus Parish remarked on the most positive aspect of the three parishes being linked together.

“We now have an extended family. We can reach out in faith to our neighbors who have become our good friends. We share ideas and feel that we are one team working together,” she said, adding that instead of the people from the three parishes having the “us, us and us” mindset, “I now think we see it as we.”

“Since we started the linkage model, we work together, and we have identified events like this where everyone is invited to eat and at the same time, they get to know each other,” said Msgr. Walsh.

“We try to create situations to be together in a non-threatening way. I think the system is working. This is really a kind of event we believe is building a sense of togetherness where we can talk with each other and meet each other ... There are so many people who are committed to the process to building relationships.”

Video taken by freelance photographer Mike Ehrmann contributed to this report.