Sacred Heart parish, Cambria Heights, held its annual parish barbecue on the church grounds on Saturday, Aug. 18.

The event was started last year by Father Donelson Thevenin who currently is serving as a Navy chaplain on the USS Boxer in San Diego, Calif.

Father Bryan Patterson, pastor, and Father Hugues Berrette, parochial vicar, supported the idea of making the barbecue a summer tradition in the life of the parish.

The priests emphasized the importance of gathering to celebrate together as a community, to renew old friendships and foster new relationships, to gap the divide that exists when people only see each other from afar at Mass. They also said it was important to not only pray together, but to eat, dance and laugh together. As such, the event is designed to gather the parish in a sign of unity. Everyone — the young, the old, the Haitian-speaking as well as the English-speaking community — all came together to make the event a success.

Some of the highlights of the day were games, such as hopscotch, jump rope, sack racing, basketball, and other such things for the children. There was also a clown to paint faces, tell jokes and distribute balloons. A cotton candy machine worked almost non-stop. Grills were fired up from noon until 8 p.m. The music was diverse, and the members of the community danced and praised. Parishioners laughed, rejoiced and got to know each other.

The whole day was transmitted live via Radio Petionville Inter based in Queens.