Sep 27, 2021 4 min read

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Although geography tends not to be the most scintillation of subjects, plenty of the folks attending the Washington Italian Heritage Festival on Saturday spent quite a bit of time looking at map.

“This is the most popular thing, I think, of the whole festival,” Tina Calabro said before thinking twice and adding, “Besides the food.”

The South Strabane Township native stationed herself throughout the event at a table representing the Italian Heritage Collection at Citizens Library, stationed next to a sizable map of the national called Italia in its native language.

“We have push pins and a magnifying glass, and people of Italian heritage want to look and find that town. We have such a dedication to our roots,” Calabro explained. “So it’s something we bring back every year.”

‘We are locally owned’

Her first six weeks or so on the job have Shana Brown brimming with enthusiasm.

And the relatively new Main Street manager for the Washington Business District Authority was eager to share it during the Washington Italian Heritage Festival.

“I’ve had the privilege of meeting a lot of the small businesses and getting to talk with them about where they’re going and just hearing their stories,” she said about her conversations with local owners, “and it’s been fantastic.”

Brown took the festival stage on Saturday afternoon primarily to encourage those in attendance to support what the city has to offer, from long-established businesses to ones for which ceremonial ribbons recently were cut.

“Across the board, the one thing that’s the same with all of them is their heart for Washington,” she said. “We are locally owned. We’re not the big chains. We’re not the box stores. It gets people invested, and it’s neat to hear their stories.”

She also announced coming events, including the return of Washington’s holiday market and Christmas parade on Dec. 3. Plus Small-Business Saturday, Nov. 27, will have numerous special features, including horse-and-carriage rides, basket giveaways and a “cookie crawl,” with boxes of treats to be filled by participating businesses as patrons make their way through the downtown.

The Washington Business District Authority was established in 2000 to provide economic development and revitalization services within the city’s Central Business District. For more information, visit downtownwashingtonpa.com/about-us.

The festival, which has been held annually since 2016 – except for last year, of course – took place at the Community Pavilion on South Main Street. In addition to tempting culinary offerings, the event featured music and dancing, vendors with Italian-themed merchandise, activities for children and a bocce tournament.

Also on the schedule was the honoring of local Italian-American health-care workers, including those who have been on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cooking demonstration took place, followed by an Italian cooking competition with two local chefs.

Presented by Primo Italiano Lodge 2800 of the Sons and Daughters of Italy, a group that promotes social and cultural events, the festival started with a Friday-night concert and continued during the afternoon and into the evening on Saturday.

The heritage table served as a hub during the proceedings, drawing people who wanted to know more about their ancestry and offering digital scanning of historic photos and documents, courtesy of Citizens Library.

Materials from the library’s Hood Local History Center were on display, including “Remembering Their Lives: Stories of Italian Immigrants to Washington, Pennsylvania,” a book complied by Calabro featuring discussions with members of 17 families.

“About four or five years ago, it hit me that no one had ever collected the history of the Italians who settled in our town,” she said.

Calabro, who lives in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood, is the granddaughter of four natives of Italy, a fact that piqued her curiosity about their country of origin.

“I always had that interest and I did a lot of traveling back to Italy to meet with my contemporaries, my cousins,” she reported. I’ve gone several times to do that and bring the family back together, which has been a lot of fun and a great hobby to have.”