Kooweerup’s streets will be flooded with shades of green, white and red balloons during the town’s celebration of the 45th Saint Sofia Festival.
The festival is in honour of Saint Sofia, the Patron Saint of Kooweerup’s Bombacis family’s original hometown in Sicily, called Sortino.
Sicilians Raffaele and Maria Bombacis immigrated to Australia in the late 1940s and launched the Italian festival in their new home of Kooweerup during the ’70s with the assistance of the Sortino Social Club.
Today, it’s a yearly celebration of Italian culture continued on by their daughter Nella Bertuna.
The festivities, open to all, start with a traditional Italian Mass in the morning, at St John’s Catholic Church, with a performance from St Anthony’s Choir.
What follows is the procession where the Italian community carries the statue of Saint Sofia around the streets of Kooweerup and to the St John the Baptist Primary School grounds for lunch.
The procession will be accompanied by the tunes of the Bellini Brass Band.
Lunch will be a delicious Italian and Aussie sausage sizzle, topped off with gelato and coffee.
Popular comedian James Liotta will entertain the crowd, as too will the singing trio Something to Talk About.
This year’s Saint Sofia Festival is on Sunday 29 October, at St John the Baptist school grounds, Salmon Street, Kooweerup.
Entry is free.
