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Date: 8/9/2022
HOLYOKE – The first ever Fiestas Patronales de Holyoke began on Aug. 4 and welcomed residents to Holyoke Heritage State Park for food and celebration of Puerto Rican culture.
Nueva Esperanza, the main organizer of the event, calls the festival the region’s largest Latino event in Western Massachusetts. Holyoke has the largest Puerto Rican population per capita outside of Puerto Rico.
Holyoke’s Hispanic residents make up a majority of the city’s population.
According to Nueva Esperanza’s website, this first year of celebration is focused on the city’s identity and a celebration of Holyoke’s first Puerto Rican mayor, Joshua Garcia.
Festival Committee member Melvin Sanchez said the Fiestas Patronales are staples in municipalities in Puerto Rico and are usually dedicated to a saint.
“It’s really been a labor of love because the business owners came together and approached us about putting together an event like this and I think it’s a testament that these competing businesses came together and said, ‘We need something like this in the city,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez thanked local businesses for contributing to the festival and for the assistance of city officials and other departments. He added he was happy to have seen the community bounce back from the pandemic through a community event like this.
The event was initially supposed to be hosted at Open Square but was eventually moved to the park where portions of Dwight and Heritage Streets were blocked off.
The park provided for a fair-type atmosphere with food trucks and vendors, the lawn area for sitting and live music performances on a stage.
“It’s been really incredible. We all came together, and a consensus came across and everybody put away their differences,” Sanchez said.
According to Sanchez, planning for year two of Fiestas Patronales de Holyoke is already underway.
“We want to learn from any mistakes and come back next year with a biggest event,” Sanchez.
The weekend long event saw musical performances throughout from notable Puerto Rican musicians Grupo Mania, Jesus Pagan, Juancho, Viti Ruiz and much more. Local businesses were offered four different levels of sponsorship opportunities for the event as well in an effort to promote more local businesses through the celebration.