
The 2023 Little Mister Tomato, Michael I. Augello, is shown completing his final duty as he will hand over his crown this morning.
Despite dark skies, it was a busy Sunday at the Pittston Tomato Festival, which celebrated its 41st anniversary with a fun-filled day for all.
The third day of the festival started with a 5k and 1-mile walk at 10 a.m., with proceeds benefiting both Fork Over Love and Meals on Wheels of Greater Pittston. Regular race participants, such as West Pittston resident Paul Shaffer, may have noticed a slight change to this year’s route.
“This year they changed it up a little because you don’t have the two bridges now, they put even more hills in it,” Shaffer explained.
Wearing his newly-earned medal for placing in his age group, Shaffer said the festival is a nice, local event where everyone makes you feel at home.
“Everyone should come out and experience this once, because it’s a very unique festival for this area,” he added.
Tomato Festival committee member and parade coordinator Sarah Donahue was busy adding some finishing touches to the parade lineup of more than 60 participating businesses, organizations, first responder groups, schools, and more.
While Donahue is no stranger to planning some of the city’s biggest parades and events, she said this parade was special.
The Pittston Tomato Festival named Greater Pittston native and Scranton Police Detective Kyle Gilmartin as this year’s Grand Marshal. Gilmartin was shot in the line of duty back in January and has been making a remarkable recovery since.
The festival committee also chose to honor longtime former parade planner James Deice — who passed away earlier this year — by renaming the parade the James Deice Memorial Tomato Festival Parade in his honor.
“To me, this is a super special one. I love those two things – I think Kyle’s a great man to honor, and I love that we’re honoring our longtime parade planner,” Donahue said.
She hopes that people will come not only for the event, but also to see the progress that the downtown has made over the past year.
“Every year there’s something new we offer people,” she said.
This year is no exception.
For the first time, more than 600 festival attendees are expected to travel from Nesquehoning to the festival via train.
“We’re excited to introduce all these people to our festival for probably the first time for most of them,” said Donahue.
As the parade made its way down Main Street, hundreds of attendees lined the streets, grabbing candy and other treats as it passed by.
Pittston resident Santina Morreale has been going to the tomato festival since she was a kid. Now, she’s continuing the tradition by bringing her own children to enjoy the festivities.
“The parade, the race — the whole tomato festival is a great community-building experience… and now, having kids, it’s even more enjoyable,” she said as she pushed a stroller while looking out to the parade.
After the parade concluded, it was time for Morreale’s favorite part — the food. Dozens of food and craft vendors were set up in the lower and middle tomato festival lots, many already making their way through lines of incoming orders. At 1:30, folks could enter the spaghetti eating competition to see who could down one pound of the classic dish the fastest within three minutes.
Avid gardeners could stop by later in the evening for the annual tomato competition, with prizes for the largest, smallest, ugliest, and most perfect tomatoes.
In the midst of the hustle and bustle, HKQ Kids project manager Sue Greenfield was busy fitting bicycle helmets for numerous children at her stand. The group has been distributing free children’s helmets for 15 years to local events.
“We decided that we would come up to the tomato festival and try to get to people in the Pittston area,” Greenfield said as she fitted a pink helmet around a child’s head. “We’re just trying to keep kids safe.”
The Pittston Tomato Festival continues Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. with vendors, live entertainment, rides and the Little Miss and Mister Tomato Contest.