Williamsburg’s mighty Giglio feast was feeling a sting of decline in 2019 as organizers faced a once-unthinkable problem — there was a serious lack of volunteer lifters who are needed each year to hoist up and carry the 4-ton, 72-foot statue through Brooklyn.

What a difference two years can make as New Yorkers, once battered and now freed from the pandemic, rushed to enjoy and lend a hand to this age-old cultural event, which offers two vital assets: scores of paesani and a community tradition that dates back more than 100 years to the old country.