Little Italy\u2019s Amici Park will transform into Venice for a night of dinner and dancing\u00a0under the stars as the second annual Ferragosto celebration returns Saturday, Aug. 13.\u00a0\u00a0 The event is a collaboration between\u00a0three primary institutions of Little Italy: the church, the school and the business improvement district (BID). Ferragosto will feature a 100-foot canal with floating gondola running through the park as well as a re-creation of St. Mark\u2019s Square, the town center of the famed Italian city.\u00a0 There will be jugglers, gondoliers, stilt walkers and a Venetian masquerade contest for prizes.\u00a0 Silent auction items and raffles will give participants the chance to take home tickets to the Super Bowl\u00a0or a trip to Venice. Italian food and treats from a line-up of\u00a0two dozen\u00a0restaurants, including Vigilucci\u2019s, Bencotto Italian Kitchen and Sogono Divino will be served at Ferragosto\u00a0as the\u00a0Anthology house band entertains guests. “Little Italy is a special place and unique in how everyone works together for the betterment of the community, to celebrate its past and support its future,” said Luke Vinci, chairman of the Nuova Gen committee, organizers of Ferragosto.\u00a0 Nuova Gen, meaning new generation, focuses on preserving the history of Little Italy through documentary and preservation projects and supporting youth through scholarships and funding for arts and culture programs at Washington Elementary School. Ferragosto, or “Feriae Augusti” is an Italian holiday celebrated since the days of Emperor Augustus\u00a0and was marked as a time\u00a0to relax after the long, hard work of the\u00a0harvest season.\u00a0 The\u00a0original\u00a0celebrations were\u00a0held for an entire month and honored the Roman gods,\u00a0including those of\u00a0agriculture and motherhood.\u00a0 Today, the Roman Catholic Church also celebrates the assumption of Virgin Mary into heaven during this time, and\u00a0the Ferragosto\u00a0holiday has been downsized to one day\u00a0held annually on Aug. 15, marked by vacations and time spent with family and friends. Last year\u2019s inaugural San Diego\u00a0Ferragosto theme was “A Night in Rome,” and was complete with a re-creation of the Roman Coliseum. Money raised from the event last year went to support the Little Italy Association (LIA) BID, Washington Elementary School and Our Lady of the Rosary Church. “The beautiful thing about the event is it benefits the main nonprofits of the community: the educational, the spiritual and the civic,” said Chris Gomez, spokesperson for the LIA, the organization that brings hundreds of thousands of people to the area for such flagship events as the Artwalk and Festa celebrations. Gomez said the LIA\u2019s funds received from last year\u2019s Ferragosto went to a “Preserve Little Italy” project \u2014 matching a federal “Preserve America” grant, a campaign spearheaded by former first lady Laura Bush \u2014 to create a documentary chronicling the founding families of Little Italy and the tuna fishing industry upon which the community was built.\u00a0 Preserving the history of Little Italy is also important to Lou Palestini, who grew up in the neighborhood and serves on the Nuova Gen planning committee, as well as the Washington Elementary Foundation Board.\u00a0 Palestini, who graduated from Washington Elementary in 1955 and is still active in projects to educate current students about the history of the neighborhood, said the school has used funds to enhance their arts and Italian language instruction programs.\u00a0 He said the Ferragosto celebration\u00a0is unique, even for Little Italy. “I was raised in Little Italy and I don\u2019t recall any event like this,” said Palestini.\u00a0 I would almost bet (attendees) would have the time of their life.” \u00a0\u00a0 Ferragosto is a 21-and-older event.\u00a0 Tickets are $100 general admission and $150 VIP, which includes full table service and drink tickets. \u00a0Amici Park is located in the 1700 Block of Date Street adjacent to Washington Elementary. Tickets can be purchased at www.ferragostosd.org or by calling (619) 234-4820. \u00a0Pre-sale is encouraged, as last year\u2019s event sold out.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Little Italy\u2019s Amici Park will transform into Venice for a night of dinner and dancing\u00a0under the stars as the second annual Ferragosto celebration returns Saturday, Aug. 13.\u00a0\u00a0 The event is a collaboration between\u00a0three primary institutions of Little Italy: the church, the school and the business improvement district (BID). Ferragosto will feature a 100-foot canal with […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":268231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11556","_seopress_titles_title":"Ferragosto marches into Little Italy","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11556,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-downtown-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}