March 2023 LaCarota
President’s Message:
Ciao Fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all doing well. Happy, healthy and safe! Hopefully everyone is enjoying the winter months and are getting things done. Maybe a mid-winter vacation in store to a warmer destination, or do you enjoy the winter with the snow and the colder climates? Maybe a skiing or snowmobiling excursion is in the works. I know that a lot of the airlines are having some good deals right now, so if you do have a vacation planned, hopefully you can take advantage of it. My wife Diane, and daughter Adriana are planning to go down to Universal Studios and Disneyland in California. It was a trip that got canceled due to the pandemic, so we are going to try it again. Looking forward to some warmer weather! Whether it’s a vacation, stay-cation, or just normal life as usual, please take the time to enjoy and pamper you and yours. Get the rest and try to avoid the stress! So like the short month of February, I’ll try to keep this edition short too. I’ll try, LoL!
Super Bowl Party:
On Sunday February 12th, we hosted our Club Paesano’s Super Bowl Party. It was nice to have it again after a 2 year break. The pandemic and a wedding forced us to cancel the last 2 years, but we got it back! We had a decent turnout. Actually more than I anticipated. The last number I got from our paid attendance was about 66 guests. That’s really not too bad considering all the competition out there. You have other bars and pubs plus the house parties that a lot of people go to, always taking some guests away. I would have to say, without a shadow of a doubt, we have one of the “BEST DEALS” in town! We had pizza, wings, chili, sausage with peppers & onions, hotdogs, nachos, chips, dips, peanuts, and wait for it, Trippa! For those of us that love the cow stomach! It was really good! You got all of this with probably the best drink prices around with 3 huge HD Screens, plenty of room to watch, squares and prop bets for the low, low price of $10. Unbelievable! For a lot of people, it was their 1st time at our party and their 1st time at our beautiful club. They told me that they would be back next year and even try to come to our upcoming events. That’s definitely a win, win for all of us! If you didn’t get the chance to come this year, please try so next year and bring a big group with you. No preparing, no clean up, no expensive dishes to make and booze to buy. Easy and simple! As always, I like to thank everyone that came out to set up, prepare the food in the kitchen and promote our event.Working the door, bartending and cleaning up afterwards. Thank you to Marc Batilegga for going out to buy all the food, preparing it and keeping it coming out before, during and after the game! We couldn’t do it without you Marc!
Carnevale Dance:
This last Saturday night, we hosted our annual CP Carnevale Dance. We packed them in with nearly 300 people in attendance. I will have an exact number of guests hopefully for our next members meeting. Our charity partner was “Calabarzon.” They are a Filipino based charity that helps impoverished towns in the Philippines with free dental work for children that can’t afford to have it done otherwise. A very good charity that was started by Fred Asa and his sister Emily Asa who live in Gresham. Fred owns “Kuya’s” restaurant in Gresham that specializes in Filipino and Hawaian cuisine. The food is outstanding and I highly recommend going there if you have never been before. As with all of our dances, we have partnered up with a local charity. Lately, I’ve tried to keep it more local, meaning Gresham and the east county because of our involvement and membership with the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. Chamber members love to support one another, and I feel that if we want support for our events, we need to support them as well. By partnering with some of the Chamber members and the local charities, we really get some good advertising, attendance to our events and get recognition for who we are. The last 3 charities have all been chamber members, and they have all brought in a good amount of guests for us. Especially at last night’s Carnevale Dance. Fred and Emily really packed them in for us, purchasing just over 90 tickets for their guests. We’ve done pretty good with some of the charities, but this was the best so far! Over 90 tickets!! Wow! I hate to say it, but there were more of their guests at the dance than our own members! These are the types of relationships that we want to form and the charity partners that we would love to work with. They were fun and had a great time. We had tons of compliments and even had a lot of interest in people wanting to rent out Cedarville in the future. It was great! If you know of a charity that is near and dear to your heart, that you think would make a good partner and bring people out to our events, please let me know. I would love to contact them and see if we can make it work. It’s a great situation to be in and it also helps our bottom line and our cause. After all, we are a “Non-profit” too, so every little bit helps. The band was hot and had everyone dancing and of course our “World famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner never disappoints! All in all, a very good night. Thanks again to all of you that turned out for set up and those of you that came back today to tear down. We had a very good turn out for Saturday mornings set up which went quickly and no one had to stay too long. That’s what I’m talking about. More hands make little work, as they say, and it’s true!
Heritage Night:
As I mentioned last month, we have decided on a date for this year’s Heritage Night. It will take place on Saturday April 15th. Doors will open at 5:30pm (like our dances). Last year was our 1st time doing this and went over really well. I would say that it was a success. It was a nice evening of great food, made up by our very own Greg DeMiestri and his brother-in-law, Dennis Griegn. They made 5 different plates which we served at each table. The food was outstanding and left everyone wanting more! We had an Accordian stroller that played some classical Italian hits, and even took some requests. Besides the great food, the main part of the night was learning about our Club Paesano Heritage. We had guest speakers that gave us an insight to how our club came to be and is what we now enjoy today. A lot of us are newer and didn’t grow up here or in Club Paesano, so it was a great lesson for us all. The night was quiet and it gave us a chance to speak to each other without having to yell over the loud music. A great night all around. Like last year, I would like to invite anyone who has some history with the club and would like to say a few words about it. It doesn’t have to be long or really involved. Maybe some things that you remembered as a child growing up in the club. How it started, what you did or remembered all the members doing to help out etc. Anna (Fazio) Nassib put together a great slideshow video presentation, and we also had stories from Pete Rebegliati, Richard Calcagno, Marc and Kathy Batilegga. We even had Phil Potestio drop in via Italia. He was on his trip over there. It was a good night. I’m also looking for some old memorabilia, pictures, books, clothing or anything you would think that would be interesting for the rest of us to see, or read about. Of course you would get all of your items back unless you wanted to donate it to the club. Please let me know if you would be interested in contributing in one of these ways. Like last year, we will charge a minimal fee to offset some of the cost for all the food we need to purchase, and we will allow you to bring in your own bottle of wine,or two, to share with the group. I am starting a list of attendees, so if you are planning on coming to it, I need to know and have a “head count” so we will know how much food to purchase. I would like to have a final number of guests by April 10th. Like last year, this event is for members and a guest only. Please email me an “RSVP” at [email protected]. Thanks
Spring Dance:
Our Spring Dance will be held Saturday May 6th. Our Charity is the East County Center for the Performing Arts, who are located in Gresham and are members of the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. Our musical entertainment will be “The Big Bad Beat”. They played for our Carnevale Dance last year and were pretty good. No time like the present to start making plans and inviting family, friends, co-workers, and anyone else that you know who would enjoy an entertaining night with us! I will let you all know when our tickets go on sale. Stay tuned!
Bocce News:
Not much to talk about in bocce right now, but if you have any interest at all in playing,please go to our bocce website at www.paesanobocceclub.com to check it out and sign up. Whether you have a team that you can bring in or are just a single player, we have room and can get you on a team if you don’t already have one. We will be having a bocce meeting in March with the date to be determined. Please feel free to stop in to see what’s happening for our new upcoming season and to get some info. You can also speak to any one of our board members for more details about bocce and our leagues.Our current board of Directors is Mario Pompei, Dino Gavazza, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch and myself, Rick Cervi. We are still trying to raise money for a roof to cover our “World Class” courts. We are selling advertising signs for both personal and business. Personalized brick pavers, bocce apparel, etc. We also accept monetary donations as well. If you know a company or person that would like to sponsor a tournament, we would love to speak to them.
Cedarville Shares:
If you are interested in owning a piece of this beautiful Lodge and Park property, please contact Steve Petruzelli at [email protected] or 503-620- 3447 to purchase Cedarville Shares. Property located at 3800 W Powell Loop, Gresham, OR 97030. Cedarville Share.
Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:
If you or someone you know are in need of a beautiful venue to rent for an event, please think Cedarville Lodge first. The club’s bookings are finally starting to pick up again, after this pandemic, but we can still use a little help. Please contact our Venue Director, Maria Duong, at 503-577- 8471 and she will be more than helpful and gracious in getting you all the info that you may need, and to also help you with coordinating your event.
Thoughts & Prayers:
Please keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers. The power of prayer is alive and well, and our very own Joe Castellano is proof of that! I’ve seen Joe a couple of times now. He’s been slowly getting out and getting back to his normal routine. Joe’s obviously still taking precautions but is looking and feeling great! Keep up the fight Joe, we are all praying for your full recovery! If you have anyone who you would like to add to our “Thoughts & Prayers” segment, please let me know and I will add them to our list. Thanks
LaCarota Question:
Well the list of winners keeps growing. Congratulations goes out to Bill Mallon, for winning last month’s coveted bottle of vino. No one saw it coming. He went into “stealth mode”, swept in and won the bottle from some of our regulars. I’m glad to see more and more of you putting your answers in to get your chance at winning. You can’t win if you don’t play! This month’s question isn’t a question. It’s a feeling. Here it is. In a couple of words or a short sentence, I want you to tell me what being a “Paesano Member” means to you. All answers will be entered in the drawing to win. Email me at [email protected]
Final Thoughts:
I wanted to touch on something that I noticed at our Carnevale Dance that took place this past Saturday. We had a great turnout and I would consider it successful, but I didn’t see a lot of members there. The reason it was a success was because of the number of guests our charity partner brought in, which was over 90 people and of course our guests from other sources such as the Chamber, etc. I was approached by a couple of our members who came asking me, “Where are all of our members at?” and “I don’t recognize a lot of faces.” I realize that not all of us can make every event, everytime. Life happens! I also realize that our “Carnevale Dance” is traditionally a tougher one to draw people at, maybe because of the time of year, I’m not sure, but we did have more people come to last year’s event. All that being said, I would encourage you to give or sell your tickets to someone if you know that you won’t be able to attend an event. Anyone you think that would enjoy our events, and potentially want to come to more of them. Hopefully becoming a regular guest and spreading the word and inviting more people for us. It just makes sense. Easy way to advertise, and a good way to have someone enjoy the tickets instead of them just going to waste. Whenever I do a donation that involves one of our events, I always make sure to tell the winner, to give the tickets to someone else if they can’t make it. Some of you may already do this, and we thank you. If you need help giving or selling your tickets, let us know. There are always members that bring in a bigger group of people so perhaps we can get rid of them for you. Anyway these are just my thoughts but ultimately I think that it’s for the good of our club. Take care of you and your loved ones and we will see you at the next meeting.
Salute,
Rick