Volunteers help make ‘Feast Week’ a great week
Page 4 • Wednesday, July 10, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette
FEAST, from Page 1
Perpetuating the longest running italian
festival in the country requires the diligent
cooperation of multiple volunteer organiza-
tions with a shared reverence for a Ham-
monton tradition that spans multiple
generations. in the days leading up to
feast Week, volunteers were hard at
work throughout Hammonton’s Little
italy.
in the St. Joseph Church parking
lot on North third Street, members
of the feast of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel Committee have been
prepping the food stands with
all the necessary equipment
for a busy week in which hun-
dreds will occupy picnic ta-
bles to dine and take in the
sights and sounds of nightly
live entertainment on the St.
Mary of Mt. Carmel stage.
in order to ensure another
smooth preparation process,
the feast of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel Committee has held
monthly meetings since January, during
which a representative from each food
stand was in attendance to discuss the forth-
coming feast.
“We talk about what we need for next
year, if there are any issues this year—we
go through it each month—any new food
orders, anything we’re adding to the menus
or anything that needs to be changed,” com-
mittee member frank zuber said.
the majority of the committee’s
physical preparation begins about
two weeks prior to the start of feast
Week. Usually with a modest-sized
group of volunteers on hand to
help, zuber said those two weeks
can often be very hectic, but this
year they received an increase in
volunteer contributions.
“We got more volunteers this
year, but it’s really hard to get vol-
unteers nowadays and it’s usually
like five or six of us doing a lot of
stuff. But there’s a lot more volun-
teers this year,” zuber said.
across North third Street at the
Our Lady of assumption Society’s
food stand, the past three weeks
have been similarly hectic.
“People don’t realize how much
work it is … We have eight trailers
we bring in here. We take all the
trailers in, set them all up. it’s a lot
of work. it’s all volunteers too,”
Our Lady of assumption Society
President Sal Mazza said.
Mazza said the key to success-
fully preparing for feast Week each
year is to assemble a team of reli-
able volunteers who can be relied
on to be there when needed the
most. fortunately, this year the so-
News from the
Historical
Society
Summer hours for the Historical
Society of Hammonton are every
tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon.
Monthly meetings will resume
September 5. Visit their updated
website at http://www.historicalso-
cietyofhammonton.org for mem-
bership and other information
about the society and museum.
New members of all ages are al-
ways welcome.
Visit the museum at 333 Vine St.
and view the current displays that
include an 1850s Plan of the town
of Hammonton, photos of the
many doctors who served the town
residents, family trees, oral histo-
ries and a variety of photos from
the estate of Grayce Pitera. they
are also coordinating Hammonton
obituaries and prayer cards for fu-
ture displays.
Please
recycle this
newspaper .
ciety had no shortage of individuals eager
to provide any needed assistance.
“You have volunteers, but the volunteers
are only good if they show up. the problem
is finding the help. We depend on the peo-
ple to help out … We have people
running to Philadelphia to pick up
our stuff. We have people donating
our vegetables and stuff; i’m very
lucky that we don’t have to buy
them,” Mazza said.
Mazza said he is expecting a
large turnout during feast Week
and believes assumption, St.
Mary of Mt. Carmel and the
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel So-
ciety will all experience sim-
ilar success.
another element of the
feast of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel’s perennial success
is the seamless cooperation
and symbiosis between the
volunteer organizations respon-
sible for facilitating the feast.
“it’s all for the good of the
church and for the good of the Mt. Carmel
Society,” zuber said.
Mazza said the parity in food prices at
each stand reflects the strong working rela-
tionship between the organizations respon-
sible for feast Week.
“We all work together, and we do the
same with our prices. We don’t do cut-
throat. What [St. Mary of Mt. Carmel]
charge[s], we charge, [the Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel Society] charge[s]. We’re not here
to say, ‘i’ll sell mine cheap,’” Mazza said.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Society Presi-
dent Louis J. Pantalone said the entire com-
munity has played a pivotal role in helping
prepare for feast Week over the past several
years, which he believes is a testament to
residents’ shared understanding of the
feast’s significance as a integral part of
Hammonton’s heritage.
“it’s been tremendous, and it continues to
increase ... We’ve had a lot of people help
us with the building of the pavilion and
with the church—trying to get things done
over there. it’s very meaningful to know
that people want this feast to survive,” Pan-
talone said.