And she's been waiting and waiting and waiting in myro foxes here.
Four Saints Festival.
Now this is the first year you're calling St. Rita's Festival for this.
Get close to that microphone.
All right.
When you're everywhere, you have to say, is this the first year it's called Four Saints?
It's the first year where the Four Saints family festival and it's a result of a collaboration
effort for the Northwest parishes for a recene.
So we have St. Rita's, but then St. Louis, St. Paul the Apostle, and St. Mary by the
Lake.
I'll join in together.
But it's still inductless having you at St. Rita's, right?
Correct.
St. Rita's has the infrastructure for it.
We have the electric.
We have the ground space, the parking, the whole thing.
Wow.
Okay.
Now, for family, if people that I've been there before many times, for people that have
it, this is a whole, it's carnival.
It's fun.
It's all family-oriented.
Correct.
And so give us a rundown of what people would say.
All right.
We're going.
Everything.
We have free entertainment, free parking, free admission.
So those are kind of our big sellers this year.
We have amusement rides by a rainbow value rides that starts at four o'clock on Friday.
Yeah, they do a lot.
I mean, they do a lot of carnivals and so forth.
They're trustworthy.
Yeah.
They're just coming down from Milwaukee.
They're setting up today.
We also have two stages of entertainment.
So we brought back two stages.
We had lost one with the COVID world, but now that we're back at running.
So two different stages and a little bit different entertainment on each one and a ton
of food.
Homemade and Italian specialties are ladies from the parishes come in and they make everything.
They've been making them the last two weeks.
Meatball sausage.
They have the secret recipe where you sniff a little bit and say, oh, it needs a pinch
of this.
It needs a pinch of that.
So it's really kind of a cool process to watch.
No, I happen to notice.
I couldn't help but notice you didn't bring any samples in.
I did not.
I did not.
They don't share with me.
I have to wait.
Did like everybody else.
I just can't help.
It's conspicuous by its absence.
Okay.
So give us the dates, the time sounds a three day festival, right?
Three day festival starting this Friday.
Again, right?
Start at four.
The grounds will open at five and we go until 11 o'clock on Friday.
Saturday is noon to 11 and Sunday we go noon until eight o'clock.
Now how did COVID affect this festival?
Yeah, we did shut down in 2020.
We were closed, but then brought it back kind of on a reduced scale just because we
didn't know how many people are becoming back 21, 22 and it's been growing.
And again, we're able to bring it back to a full festival with multiple stages.
That weird.
COVID is five years ago.
It is.
Remember with that world, it was like people are people like, oh, that was her nose or
fun times.
They're very nostalgic about it.
I wasn't nostalgic.
I didn't like being cooped up in my house and you look outside and the streets very few
cars were out there.
It's kind of creepy.
And then you turn on the news and it was just horrible news about it.
It was like, oh, I'm very nostalgic for you.
What's nostalgic about?
It's horrible.
It's horrible and everything.
You're getting tested.
Then you get the positive.
You go, oh, no.
It turns out I had COVID and lasted a bet.
I felt really awful for a day and then it got better and better and that was pretty much
my experience too.
And neighbors got down for a couple days and then we're all good.
Yeah, I know, but wow, but we closed down the world or the festivals.
They didn't close down fourth fest though.
The fourth fest parade.
Do you remember what they did that year?
I do not.
Okay.
I know what they did.
They had a car coming down the street with a speaker on it.
It could have been a truck with a speaker saying the parade's coming.
The parade's coming.
The parade's coming.
And they had the client become down the guy out.
And that was it.
All right.
That's why I don't remember it.
There wasn't a lot.
You know what they did though?
They made it so they could say it's been continuous for all these years.
Okay.
And the New York Times did that once when there was a newspaper strike in New York and
all the papers shut down.
New York Times printed one page and they can still say they can most continuous running
newspaper in America because they printed that one page every day.
They're in the strike.
Just put some news on it and they didn't distribute it.
They just put it out and a couple of sheets, but they can say it.
So that's why that's why you can do it.
If you stay open, even for like one hour, you can say you're continuous.
So we should have had our festival for a day and her an hour.
No, that's just just go spin them.
Ferris wheel once then there you go.
Now I will tell you when I was in high school, the National Honor Society got to run this
school carnival and we had Ferris wheels.
They had all the rides of a carnival on the ground.
It was the senior carnival for the senior class and they let the kids run the rides.
And I was I had to take the money at this dark gate on the other side of the school,
you know, but could you imagine healing high school seniors run rides?
I think they had professionals watching them, but still that would be a little scary.
That would be a little.
Yeah, but we you didn't know any better than they do it every I didn't arrange it.
I will tell you I was on the back gate.
There was a driving theater and there was a crossover little over a little stream and
people were coming in.
I had to collect the money there, but they're no light to his pitch dark and okay, very
scary.
So that's because I was tall and they say, well, no, it's going to mess with him.
That's why we bring in professionals to do that.
That's good.
Okay.
Yeah, games.
We have games for the kids.
We even are going to have a mermaid, some acrobats, some eyes, a little bit of everything
going on.
What are the hours for this hour?
So on Friday, we are five to 11 Saturday is going to be noon until 11 p.m.
And on Sunday, we go noon to eight at seven thirty is our big raffle drawings for thirty
five different baskets and the 35 baskets, we have a top prize of $1,500, but we actually
give out, I believe it's eight or 10 different prizes, chance to win $1,500.
Yes.
A lot of money.
Wow.
That is a lot of money.
And in our basket raffle this year, someone has donated some packer tickets.
So come on down just for your chance for that.
If nothing else.
Sinatra music from the 60s.
Yes.
That's live.
We have Josh Quinn comes in and he does a show with, um, he does his Sinatra from the
60s.
Absolutely.
He does an amazing job with it.
He's got his hat.
Yes.
That's right.
That's right.
That's what all the people say.
Oh, that's good stuff.
I like that.
Uh, got the wristband ride to get, whoa, okay.
Look at this.
Okay.
So wristband ride special Saturday and Sunday for 25 bucks ride all you want from noon
to four.
What's the mermaid?
Is a mermaid.
They bring a mermaid in, um, she took some jokes.
No, she comes in a wheelchair, believe it or not, all right.
Well, she can't walk if she's got a mug.
She does that legs.
So they bring her in a wheelchair and she is part of the dinder brother circus.
This looks like a lot of fun.
It usually is.
We're going to have a meat raffle with some using her sausages, um, interesting shapes
of sausages.
We have them looking like a beer bottle and a football, you know, um, the meat raffles
I go to this other festival this, uh, in Kenosha and it goes on all day and all night
these meat raffles and it's just people just buying tons of meat and where do you get
the meat from?
Um, an arcade.
We're getting from using her this year.
Oh, yeah.
You're going right to the source.
Yep.
Right to the source to the, um, manufacturer and they were able to give us a deal and somebody
helped out with, uh, purchasing some of it for us.
So it'll be fun.
These are, these are, these are tough to put together these, um, these festivals, it's
hundreds of hours, hundreds of hours long before the festival tends to ever go up.
Oh, yeah.
Um, it's like the, uh, the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade when they do that.
They say, um, the parade's over Thursday afternoon Friday morning.
We start next year's because that's an undertaking.
So you do something like that too.
You get to start it real early.
Oh, yeah.
We start real early.
Um, I always tell everybody it takes 13 months out of the year to plan this event and
how many people you got?
How many volunteers you got?
We need about 650 volunteer slats for the weekend.
Now, you also, um, you also need, uh, sponsors for back, what, the beer barrels, what
is that?
We, uh, allow, we allow people, isn't that kind of us to allow them to be a beer barrel
sponsors for a hundred bucks.
We'll put your name up there and it helps to offset some of our costs on the beer, on
the beer, beer barrel, beer barrel.
So a hundred dollars for a beer barrel sponsor.
Oh, that's not bad.
That's right.
You can do right on the ground, just show up and hand us the money.
We'll put your name up.
And then they come tack you with that, um, show up to the festival.
I'll just show up, just show up when you're a hundred bucks and you're on there.
Absolutely.
We'll put your name up there.
Don Rosen and he sponsored several barrels.
It was very kind of him.
The guy who never tasted, never had a beer in his life.
He's a sponsor of it.
All right.
So let's give a wrap up here.
Give all the information one more time so people look, people are coming in and out
of the radio all morning long.
All right.
So we start on Friday.
Let's start with the name.
It's four saints family festival on the St. Rita grounds on Douglas Avenue.
Yeah.
So between three and four mile road, we have a fish fry on Friday.
Oh, you mentioned that.
I didn't get that for you.
Okay.
We have the fish fry on Friday.
That starts at five o'clock.
That'll be $15 for the full fish dinner.
We have the rides going.
They begin at four o'clock on Friday.
We have a bands on Friday and that includes, so make sure I get them right, classic rock
with buzzard and then some southern rock with southbound.
We also have Sinatra from the 60s.
We have two different stages of entertainment.
Let me do.
Let me do.
On Sunday, Saturday, the grounds open at noon, noon to 11.
We have the wristband ride special, 25 bucks ride all you want.
There will be all sorts of incredible food to eat, homemade Italian specialties along
with your basic, we call it our American food.
We'll have corn roasts from Brazinski's.
We also have hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, etc.
There we will have Elvis will be there.
We have Mean Jake and bad boy headlining along with Katy Todd and Jimmy LaRose and kids
entertainment with the mermaid and the Acrobatts from dinner, brother.
So you found the real Elvis, huh?
We did.
His name is Elvis Aaron Prince.
Well, you found the real Elvis.
Okay.
Good.
We found the real Elvis.
We've been looking for him since 1979 or 78 and you found him.
We found him so come find him on Saturday.
It's the four Saints family festival.
On Sunday, we do have our half chicken dinner, the roasted chicken, they roast it right
out on the spits on the grounds.
That's also $15 for the whole thing and the wristband ride special goes on and get another
day.
All right.
It starts this weekend Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the four Saints family festival.
Otherwise known as St. Rita's festival.
This is where we're going.
Formerly St. Rita's and it's right there on Douglas Avenue.
You can't miss it dropping up Douglas because you can see the Ferris wheel, the rides
and everything.
That should be a lot of fun.
It shouldn't.
If anyone wants to help out, we're always taking volunteers.
So.
You can ride on a Ferris wheel if you have volunteers.
We can work on something.
Okay, sounds good.
Thank you, Maura.
You bet.