SAUGUS — Crowds of hundreds flocked to the Fellsway this weekend for the Imperio Mariense de Saugus’ annual festival and feast, where rolling bouts of heavy rain did little to deter the celebrations.
The event kicked off Saturday evening with live music while a crowd of nearly 2,500 people piled in to enjoy the bounty of food available, highlighted by fried dough. Sunday’s festivities featured a 12 p.m. Mass and free bowls of soup and bread, meant to symbolize the feeding of the poor.
“The whole meaning to me is to bring the community back together as our great-grandparents did, as our parents did,” Imperio Vice President Filomena Fitch said. “And also to celebrate the Holy Spirit.”
The annual feast honors the Holy Spirit and Queen St. Elizabeth of Portugal, who, as the story goes, helped avert a civil war in her country and spent much of her life seeking to give back to those who were less fortunate.
One of Elizabeth’s most significant acts was removing her crown from her head, and extending it to her subjects “so that both royalty and common people could be united as one Christian family,” according to a poster at the event. That idea was on display during the afternoon Mass, when the pastor placed a crown over the heads of some of those in the audience.
After the Sunday Mass, it was time to eat.
It seemed as though the second the service ended, a line began forming by the entrance to the serving area, where hearty bowls of soup topped with bread, served alongside bowls of meat, were available to any and all who wanted them. As fast as the bowls were set down, they were gobbled up by those at the festival.
Each bowl of soup was free for those who entered, part of the giving spirit that the festival seeks to embody, Fitch said.
Preparation for the annual event begins almost immediately after the previous year’s celebration ends, Fitch explained, and a group of volunteers spends hours in the week leading up to the festival baking bread.
Among those volunteers was Lynn Braga Vozzella, of Burlington, who said she typically attends the festival each year and seeks to help out however she can. This year, she assisted in the bread-making process, which she said she had seen her great-grandparents and grandparents do before her, for the first time.
Vozzella said she was amazed watching how meticulous the bread-making operation is, with women in their 60s and 70s spending hours baking each day leading up to the festival.
And, Vozzella’s connection to the Imperio goes beyond her volunteer work — her great-grandfather helped found the organization in 1927. At that time, according to Fitch, a group of Portuguese Saugonians got together with the intent of bringing some of their culture to town.
And so, Imperio Mariense de Saugus was born.
At first, Fitch explained, the festival was held simply out of a garage as a neighborhood event that drew a small crowd.
Now, the festival takes place on the Fellsway, where it regularly draws crowds of more than a thousand people.
“To me, the most important thing is just seeing the room full of people, and everybody’s celebrating and hanging out and partying,” Fitch said.
The highlight for Fatima and Billy Aguiar, of São Miguel Island in Portugal, was undoubtedly the soup.
“We waited a little long, but it was worth it,” Fatima Aguiar said. “The food is delicious… We come every year we can.”
The Aguiars brought Linda and Jon Atkinson, of Peabody, with them to the festival this year.
“The whole experience is just something else,” said Jon Atkinson.
