Summertime weekends were reserved for church-hopping – if not for the services inside, then for the polka and rock ‘n’ roll outside.

Such was the heyday of the parish festival, as Toledoan Michael C. Kasprzak, 73, recalled earlier this month while checking IDs as a volunteer at the Blessed Sacrament Parish Festival in West Toledo. He spoke of a time when he was a regular on the festival circuit, spending pretty much every weekend in the summer on a different church lawn.

“All the parishes had them,” he said. “I think it started in May and ended shortly after Labor Day.”

The local lineup is notably sparser these days — and set to be even sparser next year, with Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in South Toledo dropping out after a final bash earlier this month — but the tradition of the parish festival remains a summertime staple at many congregations. Organizers say it continues to serve as an effective vehicle for fund-raising, evangelization, and, most importantly, fostering community within and beyond a parish family.

“It’s a nice way to spend a weekend,” said Mr. Kasprzak, a parishioner at Blessed Sacrament.

Under a tent in the church’s parking lot the same weekend, Thom McQuestion spoke similarly. Mr. McQuestion, who is not a parishioner, said he’s been coming to the neighborhood festival for several years. This year he brought his 15-month-old granddaughter, Paeslee, counting on the family friendly environment to provide good people-watching from stroller height.

“She loves to watch people,” he said with a laugh.

Often but not exclusively Catholic, parish festivals are large-scale counterparts to the sort of picnics, potlucks and parking lot parties that many churches hold to build fellowship among their members and within the wider community. They’re typically multiday weekend affairs, with food, live music, carnival midways, and other largely secular attractions as mainstays.

Fellowship is a primary motivation for the festivals, according to organizers like Diana VanWinkle, who with her husband co-chairs the festival at Blessed Sacrament, and Casey Cook, who long headed the festival organization at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

They also raise funds, in some cases, as at Blessed Sacrament, providing an annual income that parish finance councils count on. And, to a lesser extent, they introduce a congregation or a faith tradition to visitors who might not already have a relationship with the hosting church.

“It’s an opportunity for not only our own parishioners to be together, but to volunteer to work together. That builds a certain bond,” said Mgsr. Michael Billian, who pastors Blessed Sacrament. “But it’s also an opportunity to welcome people from outside the parish.”

“The word ‘catholic’ means universal,” Ms. VanWinkle said, referring to the lower-case “c” definition of the word. “Catholics are about reaching out. We like to welcome in the community, Catholic or not. All are welcome. We try to show them our hospitality and what we’re all about.”

Sometimes that outreach results in inquiries about membership, as Monsignor Billian has seen happen each year after his church’s festival; in these case the festival becomes the “door through which they meet our parish.” Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Toledo, whose Greek American Festival stands as perhaps the area’s highest profile parish festival, has seen a similar effect after its bash in early September

“We’re not out there recruiting, but we’ve had people join the parish who became aware of the parish through the festival,” said George Sarantou, publicity chairman for the Greek-American Festival, which this year is slated for Sept. 7-9. “That’s happened several times.”

The festival tradition remains strong at several local churches, including St. Joseph Parish in Sylvania, which hosted “Festirama” in May; All Saints Parish in Rossford, which hosts its festival July 27-28; Saint Charles and Saint Hyacinth parishes in Toledo, which host a “Polka Party Picnic” Aug. 11-12, and Regina Coeli Parish in Toledo, which hosts its festival Aug. 2-5.

The Diocese of Toledo publishes a guide, available online at toledodiocese.org/page/festivals, that lists details for these and other festivals in the wider 19-county region.

Several non-Christian faith communities also host large-scale gatherings over the summer, including the Hindu Temple of Toledo’s Festival of India and the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo’s International Festival.

But there’s no denying that the heyday that Michael Kasprzak recalls, where seemingly every parish in the city laid claim to a summertime weekend, is fizzling out. Before Our Lady of Perpetual Hope announced that it would host its final festival this year, in line with the parish’s 100th anniversary, Saint Patrick of Heatherdowns Parish, a neighbor in South Toledo, announced that it, too, was dropping its annual festival.

Mr. Cook at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Lydia Ellinwood at St. Patrick of Heatherdowns, as well as organizers of ongoing festivals, said that one factor is that wrangling volunteers is more difficult than it once was. Festivals make for labor-intensive weekends, with Marita Schneider, co-chair of volunteers at Blessed Sacrament, calculating that more than 200 volunteers are needed to cover nearly 2,000 shift hours over their four-day festival.

“What we’ve realized is attendance has been kind of low,” said Ms. Ellinwood, the business manager at St. Patrick of Heatherdowns. “Getting volunteers has been a little more challenging than it has in the past. So basically we’ve decided to take a different approach to fellowship.”

Mr. Cook described the reasoning at his parish similarly. Both churches are now pursuing alternative ways to achieve the same goals that their festival once did all in one weekend — fellowship, fund-raising, and evangelization.

“I think [the] general strategy will be to create a few more events at a smaller scale,” Mr. Cook said.

At St. Patrick, for example, a smaller-scale parish picnic slated for 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. The congregation is also in the midst of a multiday white elephant rummage sale that’s expected to serve as a fund-raiser.

St. Patrick is at 4201 Heatherdowns Blvd.

“It’s not like the festival is really going away,” Ms. Ellinwood said. “It’s kind of like it’s expanded to more than just a weekend.”

At All Saints in Rossford, Audrey Caligiuri, festival chairman and parish secretary, similarly described the role of the festival in terms of fellowship and fund-raising. But tradition too is an important consideration that she sees keeping the festival going strong year after year.

All Saints has been hosting a parish festival since 1991, she said. The two parishes that merged to form All Saints — Saints Cyril and Methodius Parish and Saint Mary Magdalene Parish — each held its own festival before that inaugural party.

“Our goal is to follow the tradition of our former parishes,” Ms. Caligiuri said. “It is a huge community family event. You don’t have too many of those around anymore.”

Contact Nicki Gorny at ngorny@theblade.com or 419-724-6133.

First Published June 23, 2018, 12:22 a.m.