By Taylor Brown
Residents in the Mon Valley area ready to chow down on some of the best pierogies in the region.
The Epiphany of Our Lord Parish’s summer festival will return Saturday and Sunday for a weekend of live entertainment, homemade food and fun.
Robert Sassak, festival committee chair, said organizers and area residents are excited to get together and enjoy some of the best food the Mon Valley has to offer.
The annual festival draws about 2,000 people each year. While many of them come for the food, they stay for the entertainment, fellowship, increasingly popular lantern release and a late-night outdoor Mass.
This year, the festival will start at 5 p.m. Saturday and run through 10 p.m.
A new band, Street Level, will perform feel-good music from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
On Sunday, guests will be invited back to the parish at 11:30 a.m. when Neonswing, which is also new to the festival, will perform jump, jive and rock music until 2:30 p.m.
American Pie Oldies will perform from 4 to 8 p.m., concluding this year’s festival.
In addition to hours of live entertainment, most people come for the homemade food, which organizers have been preparing for the past several weeks.
The parish won a Pittsburgh-wide pierogi award in 2018 for its homemade goods, which were described by voters as “made with love” and “delicious, homemade, cheesy, buttery goodness.”
Last year, the festival was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which also forced the church to cut its annual fish fry short.
“We know people have been missing us, and we surely have been missing them,” Sassak said.
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