Non-profit Friends group created for Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop

In 2005, Sam Guarino’s family donated his blacksmith shop building the city of Abbeville, which relocated it to its current location on South State Street.
In the years since, the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum has become an attraction for the city, highlighting the community’s strong Sicilian ties.
Plans are now in place to ensure that continues well into the future, with some help from its friends.
During Tuesday’s regular meeting, the Abbeville City Council approved a resolution authorizing Mayor Mark Piazza to execute all documents necessary to create a 501(c)(3) corporation for the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum. The city will continue ownership of the museum and it will remain under the operation of the city’s Main Street program.
“The blacksmith shop was donated to the city many years ago,” Piazza said. “It’s on a piece of property that we purchased, next to the old jail facility.”
That jail facility eventually became the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum annex, which allowed visitors to further delve into the Sicilian immigrants’ journey to Abbeville and Vermilion Parish and their impact upon settling here.
“It has had the luxury of participating in the state’s share of the hotel-motel tax,” Piazza said of the funding mechanism that has helped develop the museum. “The state’s share of the tax is distributed to all museums in Vermilion Parish. That’s why it has had a healthy bank account for the museum. That has helped with the upkeep of the museum. That is very generously given by Louisiana, thanks to our legislators.”
There is a committee that oversees the blacksmith shop museum.
“The committee would like to form a 501(c)(3) corporation,” said Piazza, who serves on the committee. “They want to form that to continue to help (Abbeville Main Street Manager) Charlene Beckett in all the endeavors.”
The newly formed Friends of the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum will also help conduct the now annual Sicilian Festival, which takes place on the museum grounds.
“That started three years ago,” Piazza said. “The Friends would take over some of the liability, do fundraising for insurance purposes and those types of things, to get that burden off the city.”
The museum will continue to receive its share of the hotel-motel tax from the state.
“This would be a separate entity,” Piazza said of the friends of the museum. “It’s just like the Military Museum has the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park has the Friends of Palmetto.
“They do fundraising to help Main Street Program with the upkeep of the blacksmith shop and the festivals and things like that over the years.”
Councilman Brady Broussard Jr. touted the Sicilian Festival, which began in 2019 and returned this past March after cancellation in ‘20 and ‘21.
“This is something of great quality,” Broussard said. “There is outstanding food. People from New Orleans came specifically for that festival.
“This is now another thing we can be proud of in this city.”
Broussard said the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum would continue to be a source of pride for the community, especially those who share a connection.
“Thanks to all who are working hard on this,” Broussard said. “It’s wonderful that we have this in our city, for all of our citizens and everybody related to the Sicilians.”