Held annually on the second Sunday of June and identified in the City of Vancouver’s list of Official Observances and Celebrations under June’s Italian Heritage Month umbrella, Italian Day on The Drive is a vibrant cultural street festival celebrating Italian culture, heritage and community. The event includes over 120 street participants, comprised of partners, vendors, community organizations – and an estimated 300,000 attendees of all ages and cultures. The festival is held on Commercial Drive (The Drive), home to Little Italy, where the street is transformed into a lively 14 block festa. Since Italian Day’s return in 2010, the event today represents the largest one-day cultural street festival in Vancouver. A festive community embrace, The Drive comes alive in green, white and red with piazza-style animated zones, live music, food vendors, patios, lifestyle attractions, family fun activities and more.

Italian Day 2019 Theme: Comunità

Italian Day on The Drive is a cultural street festival celebrating Italian culture, heritage and community, or otherwise translated in Italian as Comunita, which is this year’s centrepiece theme. For the Italian Day Festival Society, the significance of Comunità permeates several levels of Italian Day’s purpose and roots: the importance of community in the Italian culture and heritage; the embrace Italian Day creates with people of all cultures and ages in the form of a festive community celebration; and the value and common ground we can find when coming together to help make a positive difference in our community.

For several years, the Italian Day Festival Society has been supporting at-risk youth by way of annual donations to film and theatre programs at Templeton Secondary School in East Vancouver. In total, we have contributed $7,000 between 2014 to 2018. This year, our Comunità theme opens the door wider to demonstrate the value and power community has to make things happen and help others. Our youth is our future, and many teens today face a heightened element of adversity in their lives, who without leadership and support are increasingly at risk. The belief and efforts behind the umbrella of two youth programs at Templeton Secondary aim to address this issue and are to be commended: East End Boys Club and Girls Group, respectively run by mentors and teachers, Jimmy Crescenzo and Tanya Zambrano. In recognition of this commitment and to help meet 2019 program initiatives, as part of this year’s Italian Day event fundraising, we seek to raise an additional $20,000 to donate to the East End Boys Club and Girls Group via the aid of our Italian Day sponsors and community support. Together we can make a difference!

For more on Youth Programs and their commitment at work,
please visit our website here:

http://www.italianday.ca/project/support-at-risk-youth/

Join us for Italian Day 2019 and celebrate community – Italian style!

Mangia Bene, Ridi Spesso, Ama Molto
Eat well, Laugh often, Love in Abundance