Preserving Our Italian Heritage

Buon Giorno Cugini,

Well, we are in our 8th month of 2021 and it seems our country is opening up for business and getting back to normal. It’s great to get our lives back on track. Your Friends of Isola delle Femmine, Inc. (FOI) board members have been busy getting ready for our biggest event ever, “That’s Italian” Dinner Show. More on that later.

We have established representation for all the sister cities with Isola delle Femmine in the form of FOI Chapters which includes Pittsburg, Monterey, and Martinez. The FOI Chapters will act as our liaison between FOI, each sister cities officials, and in turn FOI will interact with the city of Isola delle Femmine. The Chapter Directors of each Chapter and their committees are vital to the success of FOI’s goals and objectives. We want to thank those FOI members that have stepped up to assist in this important addition to our organization.

For the Pittsburg Chapter Director, we have asked Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce President Wolfgang Crosky. He accepted and he is willing to change his last name to Croskini, just kidding. We are thankful for his interest, expertise, and experience with Pittsburg city officials and businesses which are important to getting things done.

For the FOI Monterey Chapter Directorship Salvatore Ferrante of Ferrante Construction has agreed to take the helm. Salvatore is a well-known advocate of Italian Sicilian Heritage in the Monterey area. He is involved in most of Monterey’s festivals including the Santa Rosalia Festival and the Italian Heritage Society. We are grateful to have him aboard.

With Martinez we have a whole group of members that have agreed to assist in the Chapter. For the Martinez Chapter Directorship Mike Inzerillo agreed to take the lead. He has many talented and influential Martinez citizens to assist him; Daniel Pellegrini, Mary Goodman, Michael J. DiMaggio, and Cindi Collins Erickson make up the committee.

In the beginning of this year the new mayor of Isola, Orazio Nevoloso along with a few city officials announced they may be attending our October 2 event. Now the placement of the Sister City FOI Chapters has become more vital than ever. We thank the members who are taking on these important roles that will help FOI achieve our goals.

On July 10th we will be having an Old Fashion Sicilian American Family Pic Nic at the Martinez bocce court area. We wanted a venue to showcase and present our first FOI college scholarships to the 6 recipients that were awarded $1,000 each to help with college costs. Those students are Antonia Cardinale, Giovanni Ferrante, Anna Lucido, Francisco Cardinale, Annamarie Cardinale-Crone, Angelina Shipe.

Now we are getting ready for our BIG event of the year, “That’s Italian” Dinner Show on October 2, to be held at the Colombo Club in Oakland. It is developing into a spectacular event. Tickets are on sale now and they’re going fast. We are limited in the number of people we can have attend so get your tickets before we reach the limit. Go to the events section and buy your tickets on line NOW!

It is going to be a spectacular event. Family, great food, memorable Italian entertainment, great memories made. Don’t miss it.

See you all there.

Your Executive Board