Charity Behind Popular N.Y. Festival Donates Few Proceeds

The nonprofit that runs the Feast of San Gennaro, a popular annual event in New York City’s Little Italy, gives away less than 5 percent of its proceeds to charity, only a couple of points more than when the festival was controlled by the mob, according to the New York Daily News. From 2007 to 2012, years in which the feast took in $4.4-million in gross revenue, the group Figli di San Gennaro reported donating $210,500, or 4.7 percent.

Figli di San Gennaro took over the feast in 1996 after then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani kicked out the previous charity operator, which authorities said was tied to the Genovese crime family. Mr. Giuliani said at the time that 3 percent of festival proceeds were going to charity and appointed a monitor to oversee the new group.

Figli officials said almost all revenue raised by the feast, mostly from charging rent to vendors, goes into putting on the event and that its charitable purpose is secondary. “We raise money for charity, but our real purpose is to continue the tradition we’ve had for years in honoring the patron saint and celebrating our Italian heritage,” said John Fratta, a Figli board member whose grandfather co-founded the event 88 years ago.