THUNDER BAY – Not even a little bit of rain could deter festival-goers at Festa Italiana.
For its 33rd year, the Italian-focused festival brought lots of live music, fun for kids and certainly lots of pasta and homemade sauce.
The festival runs until 11 p.m. on Monday, after kicking off at noon on Sunday.
"It seems like yesterday, 33 years have gone by," said founder Benny Melchiorre. He continued that even though they couldn't have fireworks this year, it was a fantastic event.
While the lines were long, they moved quickly.
"[On Sunday], we had a line up the parking lot," said Melchiorre. Previous years have seen close to seven thousand people at the festival over the weekend.
One standout spectacle of the event is the food-eating contests. This year featured the kids' spaghetti-eating contest and a jello-eating contest. For anyone over 13 years old, there was a spaghetti-eating contest, jello and a watermelon-eating contest.
Danica Jones was the winner of the adult spaghetti contest. After coming off of a night shift, her friends convinced her to attend. When asked about a strategy to win, Jones said she just arrived hungry and did her best to eat as fast as she could.
The two-day festival is to promote Italian culture while raising funds for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation.
