Traditional Mt. Pleasant church festival draws big crowd
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What do you get when you have thousands of homemade pierogies, hundreds of stuffed cabbage, trays of halushki, hamburgers, hot dogs, hot sausage, games, gift baskets and a raffle to win a wheelbarrow full of top-shelf liquor?
The answer is the St. Pius X Festival in Mt. Pleasant, a community tradition for more than 35 years, said Eric Harris, the organizer for the biggest fundraiser for the St. Pius X Parish. The pandemic forced the church to cancel the event in 2020 and 2021, Harris said, but the crowds were just as strong Sunday as the pre-covid days.
The only hitch came Thursday when a storm blew through town, carrying five canvas booths across the street onto the yards of neighbors. Four sustained so much damage they could not be used, Harris said, but the vendor supplying them came to the rescue with new ones Friday, he said.
There was no threat of a storm Sunday afternoon, as hundreds of people crowded the parish parking lot along Summit Avenue, where booths were set up offering food, drinks and games of chance.
“God has taken care of us with the (good) weather,” said the Rev. Daniel Carr, parochial vicar for St. Pius X and Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary parishes in Mt. Pleasant.
Among those soaking up the sun and tasting the food offerings were Pete Radocaj of Hempfield and his fiancee, Pam Ritson.
“We come down here because its a good festival,” said Radocaj.
For Ritson, it is more personal. She has family in the Mt. Pleasant area — her aunt lives in Mt. Pleasant and my mother’s family is from nearby Hecla in Mt. Pleasant Township.
Back in the day when Catholic churches were often defined by a particular ethnic group that flocked to a parish, St. Pius X was a church for those of Eastern European descent. Thus the sale of pierogies, halushki and stuffed cabbage that had people standing in long lines in the afternoon heat.
Karen Prickett of Mt. Pleasant said church members and volunteers made between 600 and 700 dozen pierogies for the festival. That comes to somewhere between 7,200 and 8,400 pierogies. They also made around 900 stuffed cabbage. Both dishes are labor intensive, and they have been making them for months in preparation for the festival.
Not all of the cooking was done in advance. Some of the festival volunteers were cooking dumplings for halushki and pizza Sunday afternoon, while others were shuttling the cooked food from the church kitchen to the booths.
Dan Copeland of Mt. Pleasant, tasked with pushing around a wheelbarrow of about two dozen bottles of whisky through the crowds, said the festival is a big draw.
“This festival is all about tradition, and we’ve always done this,” said Copeland. He joked that none of the alcohol was of the cheap variety.
Helping him sell tickets to win all that alcohol, which was not too hard of a sell, were Patty and Jerry Miele of Mt. Pleasant.
“We do it to volunteer to help the church,” Patty Miele said.