Holy Guardian Angels Catholic Church — Festival’s Original Beneficiary
More than 2,000 gallons of seafood and chicken-and-sausage gumbo will bubble in pots this weekend as the Gumbo Festival settles into its new home at the Westwego Farmers & Fisheries Market, carrying forward a tradition that traces back nearly 60 years to a small church fair. The festival runs Friday through Sunday, October 9-11, at 484 Sala Avenue in Westwego, with gates opening at 6 p.m. Friday, noon Saturday and noon Sunday.
A Market in a Seafood City
The City of Westwego describes the Farmers & Fisheries Market as a free community gathering place featuring locally grown produce, fresh seafood, prepared foods, arts and crafts, and regional music. For broader place-history context—not evidence about the festival’s origins—Visit Jefferson Parish says fishermen, shrimpers, oystermen and trappers made up a large portion of Westwego’s early residents.
The festival began as church fundraising fairs in 1967, when Monsignor J. Anthony Luminais, ordained in 1954 and later assistant pastor at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Church in Westwego, started fairs to benefit Holy Guardian Angels Catholic Church, according to wurthluxury.com. The fairs expanded after Luminais became pastor of Sacred Heart Chapel in Bridge City, with parishioners helping build them into a larger festival by 1973, according to New Orleans Historical. Volunteers contributed their time and talents, and the festival eventually grew large enough that then-Governor Edwin Edwards declared Bridge City “The Gumbo Capital of the World,” the archive says.
A Parish Built on Gumbo
Festival fundraising supported the parish’s growth, including property purchases and parish buildings. Construction of Holy Guardian Angels Church began in 1983, and the church was consecrated in March 1987, according to the New Orleans Historical archive. Elson Griffin crafted the sanctuary, altar, lectern, ambo and wooden crosses from Louisiana pecky cypress…