BELLAIRE — The sausage booth for Bellaire’s Sons of Italy has been a part of the Upper Ohio Valley Italian Festival for years, giving a taste of Italy to all during this celebration of heritage slated this Friday through Sunday in Wheeling.

Club President Doug Hartlieb said about 50 volunteers are preparing the sausage at the club headquarters in Bellaire. Among them are current and former elected officials and business people committed to the event and their Italian ancestry.

“We have a good volunteer base,” he said, adding that the volunteers will work in shifts beginning at 7 a.m.

“We make a ton and a half of sausage,” he said. “We have three days of preparing the sausage. That is cutting, stuffing and also cutting to size. Then we put it in the freezer and we keep it to the time of the festival. We start three weeks ahead.”

He added that this makes enough for roughly 9,000 sausage sandwiches at three sandwiches per pound.

“We get all kind of people saying they can’t wait to have the sausage. They look forward to it. They come to the Italian Festival downtown just to have our sausage. A lot of them do that,” he said, adding that the sausage will also be sold at the Bellaire lodge.

Hartlieb added that the festival is a chance to reach out to the wider community.

“The recipe’s a secret recipe,” he said.

“This is a tradition. We carry the Italian heritage through our club and one way of sharing it with the Ohio Valley is through food, to sell the sausage at the Italian Festival. “

Members also have regular spaghetti, sausage and meatball dinners available to the public from 4-7 p.m. Thursdays.

Hartlieb added that he hopes that along with regular customers, many new attendees arrive and have their first taste of the Sons’ sausage at the Italian Festival.

The club thanked Thomas Jeep Eagle of St. Clairsville for donating a van to transport the sausage to the festival site in Wheeling.

The money raised is used for a variety of purposes. The Sons of Italy regularly awards scholarships. Hartlieb said five $1,000 scholarships have been paid this year. The club also donates to charities, schools and organizations.

“It’s a log time we’ve been doing this,” Richland Township Trustee and club member Greg Bizzarri said. “It’s a venture of love and comradery in the Italian way. It’s our heritage. I’m involved because my father-in-law was one of the first guys.”

Bizzarri pointed out the sense of fellowship, as well as the high number of senior citizens who volunteer.

“A lot of people think of the Jamboree In The Hills in the summer. We think of the Italian Festival,” Bizzarri said.

The Sons of Italy is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and will hold a special event in August.

“We’re going to open up our piazza, inside and outside,” Hartlieb said. “It’s been strong for 100 years.”