In September last year, a young man brought his elderly mother to the St. Anthony’s harvest festival. They made a beeline to the used books booth called Bookworm.

The man came to buy books for his mom. But he didn’t buy her just a couple. He bought 365 books so his mother, apparently an avid reader, will have one book for each day of the year to read, said Arthur who is in charge of the Bookworm and book donations.

He is looking forward to the Sept. 18-19 festival on the church grounds to see if the mother and son will come back and do an encore of the purchase they made last year. Arthur is curious to know whether the mother kept the reading pace of one book a day. Judging by the books that she selected, the mother’s reading taste ran the gamut. However, many of the selections she picked were of the western and historical novel genre, he said. Those are actually the biggest sellers at the Bookworm, and the kind of books that they are asking for people to donate to this fund-raiser.

The Bookworm, though, is hardly the only big attraction at the upcoming annual festival. As usual, the family-oriented two-day extravaganza will feature the usual popular crowd pleasers. There will be food booths offering nachos and corn, lumpia or eggroll, ice cream, tacos and tamales, funnel cake, snow cones, hamburgers and hot dogs, linguica, as well as capuccino. Game booths will include the perennial favorites such as ping pong toss, smash cans, grab-a-duck, milk can toss, nickel pitch, and six shooter. There will be face painting as well, and a putting green. For the adults, there will be a beer garden where attendance will be strictly enforced.

The festival’s long-standing features are being offered, too, such as the ever popular live and silent auctions where the offerings include livestock, Portuguese sweet bread, major collectible items, in-kind services, and many others.

There will be the opportunity drawing as well with $2,000 in cash going to the grand prize winner. Those whose luck eludes them at this time will still have an opportunity to win one of the other big-ticket items that include two bikes(one to be drawn on each day of the festival), a gift card each from Bass Pro Shops, Wal-Mart, Target, as well as gift cards for grocery shopping, restaurants and gas, a digital camera and a laptop computer.

Donations for each ticket are $1 each, six for $5 or 12 for $10. These may be purchased at the church office located in the building on the west side of the church - 525 E. North St. - or on the festival grounds on either day of the festival. There will be drawings held separately on Saturday and Sunday. The grand prize winner will be announced at 8 p.m. Sunday at the festival. One need not be present to win.

Festival volunteers are also asking for other donations such as new or gently used stuffed toys as well as handcrafted items to be sold as part of this major church fund-raiser.

The theme of this year’s festival is “We are One in the Spirit.” It is intended as a celebration to thank God for this year’s harvest, and to gather together God’s faithful.

The spiritual highlight of the weekend celebration will be the concelebrated outdoor mass held on Sunday, Sept. 19, on the festival grounds on the corner of Fremont and Sutter streets. The liturgy and music will be multilingual representing the various cultural groups that make up the parish. There will be no Masses at 12:30 p.m. or at 6 p.m on Sunday. However, there will be Masses at 7 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. in English in the church, and at 10:45 a.m. on the festival grounds.

For more information about the festival, call the church office at (209) 823-7197. Call the same number if you have books that you would like to donate to the Bookworm - especially western and historical novels - except Reader’s Digest and National Geographic.