Carassauga is an incorporated non-profit volunteer community organization, celebrating its 31st Anniversary in 2016. It operated for the first time in 1985 with 10 pavilions. The Festival was developed in response to a challenge put out by Mayor Hazel McCallion to all ethno cultural groups at a meeting of her calling in the old City Hall in the fall of 1985.

Carassauga Festival ranks today as Mississauga's largest cultural festival, its largest indoor festival, and its second longest running community festival. It is the largest multi-cultural Festival in Ontario and has been voted by Festivals & Events Ontario as one of the Top 100 Festivals in Ontario.