North Haven’s sixth annual Italian Festival of Angels was once again a successful, community-focused event that benefited numerous charities and celebrated a nationality shared by many locals.

Hosted Aug. 19 to 21 on the town green by North Haven’s Sons and Daughters of Italy, Lodge 2805, the event included Italian cultural and historical exhibits, demonstrations, live music, a marketplace, a full Catholic Mass and plenty of food.

On Saturday, vendor and cultural tents rimmed the town green and lined the site’s walkways. Patrons visited booths or congregated before the festival’s bandstand to enjoy an array of live music. Festival events director Len Steplemen estimated total attendance at more than 30,000 people. “This year went very well,” he said Monday.

New to 2010 was a third day, all with free admission, so that Lodge 2805 could incorporate additional community events while fundraising further. “The whole idea of the festival is not to make money,” Steplemen said. “Obviously, we don’t want to lose money, but the main idea of the festival is to give back to the community.”

“Our lodge’s charter stipulates that at least 50 percent of what we make at the festival is given to charities,” he added. Charities and causes supported by Lodge 2805 include Holy Joe’s Café and the Muscular Dystrophy Association, as well as Alzheimer’s disease and Cooley’s anemia research.

Steplemen thought extending to three days went well, though he was awaiting final financial numbers, expected within a week. “This will be the test for us,” he said. “We will find out for next year whether or not we can do a third day.”

An extra day meant more fried dough and sofritto sold by food vendor Giulio’s Pizza and Restaurant, 126 Middletown Ave. Giulio’s owner Sal Gagliardi estimated his booth hawked 2,500 to 3,000 pieces of fried dough and 400 to 500 pounds of sofritto during Lodge 2805’s festival.

Such high levels of Italian cuisine consumption did not surprise Gagliardi. “Everybody wants to be Italian,” he said Saturday.

North Haven’s Northeast Volunteer Firehouse, 366 Washington Ave., returned with its traditional dunk tank. Taking turns, sitting on an overhang above a 4-foot-deep water tank, firehouse volunteers splashed down whenever festival-goers hit a circular target with a ball.

“We started with the dunk booth four years ago,” said Jeff Damato, of the Northeast Firehouse. “It’s always fun to dunk somebody, getting somebody wet, especially when it’s cold out.

To combat chilly waters, Northeast Firehouse enlisted a water heater. “This is the first year we’re using a heater,” Damato said. “It does get a little cold. We have to take turns.”

Damato said his volunteer company rented tanks, but is looking to purchase one. He added that North Haven’s Italian Festival of Angels is a firehouse favorite. “This place is awesome,” he said. “They take care of us here, so we take care of them.”

An authors’ roundtable allowed writers to recite from their recent works. Diane Esposito, owner of Personal Harmony and Health in Wallingford, discussed a soothing breathing technique, as explored in her new holistic healing and meditation publication, “Play, Heal, Love!”

“Breathe in deeply through your nose, and as you do, expand your belly,” she said to her audience. “Then breathe out with an audible sigh, a cleansing breath. Your body will be humming, as if you had given it a tune-up.”

Focused inhalation and exhalation helps mitigate anxiety, according to Esposito. “When we’re stressed, the first thing we cut off is our oxygen,” she said.

Philanthropic organization Holy Joe’s Café had a festival presence. Founded by the First Congregational Church of Wallingford in 2006, the non-profit collects coffee to be shipped overseas for American troops stationed mainly in the Middle East.

“We’ve collected $600 so far through Saturday afternoon,” said First Congregational Church deacon Tom Jastermsky, manning Holy Joe’s Café’s stall. “But the crazy time is coming at Saturday night with dinner and the music.”

“Also, the Italian Festival gave us a check for $2,000” he added. “The North Haven Sons and Daughters of Italy are great. They’ve been going around the community, telling everybody for us.”

All coffee is shipped free-of-charge to chaplains in the Middle East, by way of Carol Wallace, chief executive officer of Cooper Atkins Cooperation of Middlefield. Holy Joe’s Café’s also constructs wooden bistros in which soldiers can drink.

“It’s a chance for the soldiers to decompress, and lift their morale,” Jastermsky said. “They can forget where they are and relax.”

Commemorating Tony Consiglio, whose family still owns and operates Sally’s Apizza Restaurant, New Haven, a photo exhibit in the festival’s cultural tent explored the subject’s relationship with Frank Sinatra. Early in his life, Consiglio befriended a young Sinatra, ultimately traveling with the singer for more than 30 years, meeting all sorts of music and entertainment legends, including Lou Gehrig, Muhammad Ali, Lou Costello, Kim Novak and Ted Kennedy.

Nearby in the cultural tent, a large map of Italy was stuck all over with green, white and red-striped flags on toothpicks. Festival attendant Theresa Pugliese, of Hamden, fixed a flag within a thick bunch centered on Southern Italy. “That indicates where my family comes from,” she explained. “My family comes from Naples and Calabria.”

Festival worker Maria Villecco explained, “We get to see where the families of Italians from the New Haven, North Haven area come from. Most are from the southern part of Italy.”

“During the beginning part of the century, the southern part was very poor in Italy,” Villecco added, catalyzing increased American immigration.

Yearly, 200 to 300 flags are placed on Lodge 2805’s map, said Villecco, whose own family originates from southern Italy’s Province of Salerno.

Elsewhere, Lodge 2805 representatives and Gary Bimonte, co-owner of New Haven’s Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana, educated young attendants on correct pizza dough preparation.

“Just use your finger tips,” he said to six eager students, who were leveling out hunks of dough into circles. “Push out to the edges.”

Once all discs were flat and even, Bimonte and his Lodge 2805 assistants taught proper dough tossing. As the pizza pupils launched and spun their dough, flour floated around the table like light snow lifted by an updraft.

“How old are you?” Bimonte asked one particularly quick-learning youngster. Through a smile, the child answered “six.” “Six?” Bimonte replied. “Ten more years and I’ll give you a job.”