Feast of Mother Cabrini in Brentwood to celebrate its 50th year with 'something for everyone' beginning Friday

For five decades at the end of August, hordes of hungry festivalgoers have descended upon Brentwood to eat their way through sausage and peppers, zeppole and, if they’re lucky, cannolis at the Feast of Mother Cabrini.

This year will be no different as Long Island’s largest Italian feast returns for its 50th anniversary celebration at Suffolk County Community College’s Grant Campus, organizers said.

The beloved tradition presented by Brentwood-based Giuseppe A. Nigro Lodge #2234 — Order of Sons and Daughters of Italy in America in partnership with Newton Shows, also will feature games, kiddie and adult rides, live music and entertainment. There will be firework displays on two nights of the feast that kicks off Friday and is open Aug. 25 to 27 and Aug. 31 to Sept. 4.

“It’s just a great family night out,” said Sal Bisulca, president of the lodge and feast co-chair. “We have something for everyone.”

Bisulca was particularly excited because the festival was not held in 2020 and 2021, he said, and it was a scramble to get last year’s set up.

A food promenade stretching for a quarter mile with Italian culinary delights also will have tacos and gyros adding an international flair to the event. And what would a feast be without an eating contest? Zeppole will be food of choice for the event.

Organizers weren’t sure why the feast for the first United States citizen canonized as a saint began but a statue of Mother Cabrini, Frances Xavier Cabrini, will once again be front and center throughout the festivities.

Mary Ann DeCostanzo, immediate past president of the lodge and feast co-chair, said many years ago a grandmother from the community brought the statue from Italy and donated it to the lodge.

“We just found that out today,” she said. “It’s the statue that we use in our procession; it’s special to us.”

The feast is a fundraiser. DeCostanzo said the statue, which will be dressed in a linen garment, will be paraded through the festival on Sept. 3 to allow people to pin donations to benefit the saint’s namesake shrine in Queens.

Among other charities to benefit from the feast are students at Suffolk County Community College and Brentwood High School; local churches, food pantries and fire and ambulance companies. On one night festivalgoers are asked to bring two canned goods to benefit Island Harvest.

To encourage children’s literacy, children in kindergarten to eighth grade will get a discounted unlimited ride bracelet if they can show they have read and summarized two books.

“It’s important for children to develop their reading skills, even in the summer,” Mike Newton, president of Newton Shows, said in a news release. “We’re proud to support a program that encourages both reading and fun.”

When the feast first started it was on what was then the future site of the western campus of Suffolk County Community College.

DeCostanzo, who is a 1973 graduate of the college, says much has changed since that time but feast traditions live on.

 “Our grandfathers and grandparents set a good pattern and we just follow through with it and we expect it to continue,” she said.