SCRANTON, Pa. — Tents went up outside while volunteers baked inside St. Ann Maronite Church in Scranton.
Pastries are being prepared for the church's Lebanese Heritage Festival on Sunday. The menu features traditional dishes, including baklava.
"We do it every year," Thomas Artavane said. "It's phyllo dough with nuts in the middle and it's very good."
Fr. Tony Youssef is the pastor at St. Ann's and says the heritage festival is a long-standing event in Lebanese tradition.
"We're known as very generous and very welcoming people, and this is what we do here as well. At our festival, you can see and taste our special flavors of food," Fr. Youssef said.
After a year off during the pandemic and a scaled-back festival in 2021, St. Ann's is looking for a sweet return this year.
"Last year we did very well considering, and hopefully, we'll do even better this year. Nicer weather and no COVID, at least not the way it was before," Artavane said.
Many of these volunteers have been helping prepare for the festival for nearly three decades. It's a lot of work, but they look forward to it every year.
"Everything! The food, the people, seeing people that we haven't seen in maybe a year or two or three. It's just fun. We have fun," Mary Teresa Mackarey-Fielding said.
Money raised from the festival goes to the church.
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