August 2023 LaCarota
Presidents Message:
Hello my fellow Club Paesano members. As always, I hope that this edition of the newsletter finds you all well. “Happy, healthy and safe”! I hope that you are all out there getting things done and having fun. This weather has been fantastic, and has me wanting to be outside all of the time. We are blessed with the climate that the Pacific Northwest has to offer us. Very little to no humidity in the summer is always nice along with usually mild winters, compared to where some of us are from. Has anyone booked a trip, or have gone to Italy yet this year. I’m looking at flights, but the prices still seem pretty high right now. I know that they usually drop a little in the fall. Italy is a great place to be in the summer time though. There’s multiple Festa’s going on practically every week. Every little town is celebrating a Saint’s Day, or the mushrooms being ready, to a person picking up an accordion and saying, “Hey, let’s have a Festa”! It’s fantastic. I wish that we could adopt a little more of that kind of lifestyle here in North America. In Europe it’s Family, friends and Festa. Here in North America, it’s Work, money, family, friends and festa. We need to remember to stop and smell the roses sometimes. Earn a living, but remember to step out and have a good time too. Go out on the town, throw a party and have a great time with your loved ones. Life is short my friends, Play hard!!
Concert in the Park:
Saturday August 5th is our Concert in the Park. Gates open at 4pm. “5 Guys Named Moe” will be our musical entertainment for the evening. At this event your ticket allows you access into the concert, and you’ll have the option of purchasing a variety of food offerings from our kitchen. Of course, we will offer our “Non host” bar with all of your favorite libations as well. Please help to make this concert a success by attending and inviting everyone and anyone that you think would enjoy this event. We need to have a big push of tickets sold as we are only 2 weeks away. So far, we are still in need of guests. We are not limited to the amount of people we can have here as our park is huge, so invite, invite, invite! Being that the Concert is our biggest event, we ask our members to help out by volunteering some time to run some of our booths, gates, food etc. We have different shifts, and different tasks, so please help us out. Chelle Ordway and myself are trying to fill some vacant spots. Chelle sent out an email recently outlining our shifts and where people are needed so, please look it over and get back to one of us. Chelle’s email address is [email protected] or email me to let us know. Let’s all take part in making this a successful event. Thank you. If you would like to help Marc, make sauce on Wednesday August 2nd at 8am, please show up at the club, ready to lend a hand. If you’re lucky, maybe he’ll make you some pasta too!
Festa Italiana:
For the 3rd year in a row, Cedarville Park and Club Paesano will be hosting the “Festa Italiana” 2023. It will be held on Sunday, August 20th. Our bocce club will also be holding our annual “Festa Bocce Tournament” that morning. We are excited about it and are ready to dig in to help the Festa. I’ve sat on their committee for the last 2 years along with Mario Pompei. We’ve done our best to work with all that are involved to produce a great event. Our club’s goal is to help out in whatever way we can, to keep this longtime Portland tradition alive and going strong for the next 50 years. This is a big event and with all big events we will be asking for volunteers to help out to make this a huge success. This is not a Club Paesano event, but an Italian event. It’s being held at our club to help to support the Festa, but it is an “All Italian Club” and an “Open to the public” event. On that day, everyone becomes Italian!! I’m hoping that Club Paesano members will represent well and volunteer to help. Our own Chelle Ordway, will be sending out “Volunteer request” emails, and will have a signup sheet at our next members meeting on Wednesday July 5th. There will be many shifts to fill at different times as this event will start at 11 am and go till 9pm. Be the 1st to sign up and pick the shift of your liking. If you can work multiple shifts, that would help out tremendously too. The sign-up list will have the shift function along with the time slots that are available. These types of events can only happen with the help of our volunteers so let’s do our CP best to help out in whatever way we can! I thank you all in advance, and would like to thank our very own CP Members that sit on the Festa Committee and attend monthly meetings to help keep the Festa alive and moving. Special thanks go out to Ed Ferraro – Festa President / Mirella Rizzatti Vice President / Chelle Ordway – Secretary & Volunteer Coordinator / Mario Pompei – Committee member/ Myself, Rick Cervi– Committee member. The committee is always looking for more ideas, input and help, so if you are interested in joining, please let one of us know so that we can add you to the Festa email and “Zoom” meeting invites. Like I always say, “Let’s do our best to make it a GREAT ONE!”
Chamber of Commerce Event:
On Wednesday July 12th, Club Paesano hosted the “Unofficial Happy Hour”, in conjunction with the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. All chamber members get a chance to host a happy hour to bring other members in and to show off our wares and what we have to offer. It was a good opportunity to show off our park, cantina area, bocce courts and the lodge as well to potential future customers. We had a decent crowd that came through along with our bocce members that happened to be playing on Wednesday nights. We offered 3 different kinds of food for purchase along with our “No Host” bar. Our guests loved the food, and more importantly, loved our venue. Most of the chamber members do! Every time I go to a chamber event, I always hear nothing but great things about us. Our venue, our food, and most importantly, our hospitality. We do everything possible to make our guests feel like our Famiglia, and they notice it. Kudos to all of you that showed up and helped get it going! Special thanks once again to Greg DeMeiestri for setting up the menu, getting all of the food, then preparing it like he knows how. So good! His fiancé Lori Bass, for being his chef’s assistant in the kitchen the whole time. I’d also like to thank all of the members that came out to help set up and stayed to tear down and clean up afterwards. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, John Benagni and Chris Siri. A quick shout out to my wife Diane, who also came out to help too. Events with the chamber do everything to help us out. It gets our Club Paesano name and footprint out there, which gets us noticed and it makes people want to get involved with us as well. It’s helping with lodge and park rentals too. Many chamber members have approached me about Cedarville info or wanting to rent it out. I refer them to Maria Duong, our Venue Director, and she gets it done. We make a good team! LoL! We need to continue our membership with them and we need to continue to get recognized. Many people still don’t know exactly who we are or what we do, including Cedarville Lodge & Park. With all of your help, we will continue to strive to make CP and Cedarville a household name, and a place to want to be at.
Paesano Bocce Club:
It’s hard to believe, but our summer bocce season is already 3 quarters of the way done. We will be starting our playoffs next week in all 4 nights. I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing a lot of great bocce being played this year, and the talent level keeps getting higher and higher. It’s been fantastic seeing how much our members have been enjoying each night. Everyone having a great time, but also being competitive and wanting to win. It has been one heck of a season. Teams are now jockeying into positions to make their playoff run, with hopes of being crowned the 1st place winners of their respective nights. Our final day will be held on Sunday August 13th. It’s our “Championship Sunday”. We will play our playoffs for each night, then ultimately crown a champ for each night. We went with this format last year and it proved itself to be a success and popular. Doing our championship this way allows for different nights and different players to get to all watch the great bocce played that day, but it also allows our players from different nights to get to meet one another too. If you don’t play bocce, please feel free to come to the courts that day, to cheer our members on to victory and have a great time doing it. We will have a “Potluck” lunch, so please bring out your favorite dish and drink to share with your fellow members. More info to follow. At our “Concert in the Park” on Saturday August 5th, Club Paesano has partnered with our Paesano Bocce Club, to be our Fundraiser. As you all know, our bocce club would love to put a roof over our 4 beautiful “World Class” courts. The Bocce club needs every penny it can raise as this project will be expensive. At the concert, our bocce club will have a booth set up to help make money for our “Raise the Roof” campaign. We will offer the “Wall of Wine”, a raffle & silent auction. If you have any wine bottles or gift items that you can donate for any of these fundraising activities any help will be appreciated. Vacation homes, Sporting event tickets, services, tools, gift cards etc. will all be accepted. Please contact Mario Pompei, or myself if you have something that you can donate to this well worthy cause! Another great reason to come out to the Concert in the Park, to help support 2 great causes. If you would like to follow our bocce club, please go to www.paesanobocceclub.com. There you will find league standings, upcoming tournaments and results, bocce news or to make donations or buy a paver. Thank You!
Club Paesano Dues:
Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you.
Italian Farmers Picnic:
On Sunday August 6th at 5pm, Joe Rossi will be hosting his 2nd Annual “Italian Farmers Picnic”. The event will be held at his house which is located at 3701 NE 122ND.Portland. He has graciously invited all CP members to it at no cost. Some of us were lucky enough to go to it last year, and we had a great time! Our very own Greg DeMeistri will put together some nice Italian dishes for us to enjoy, and Joe will provide wine, beer and soft drinks too. There will also be a live band for our dancing and listening pleasure. This is a great way to bring the Club Paesano members together with the Farmers and Ranchers too just like they did in the old days. A fantastic way to keep our heritage alive and well. Thank you, Joe, for putting this wonderful party on once again. We appreciate you and all that you do for the Italian community in the Portland area.
LaCarota Question:
Well now, it looks like our field of winners is starting to expand a little, although one of our winners was on a tear not that long ago. Last month we had 2 drawings because of LaPolenta dinner in June. Congratulations to our member who keeps fighting every month and just about answers every question. Jimmy, “Bam, Bam” Burch kept relevant by winning June’s bottle. Now for July’s winner, we had a bright new face that came on the scene. I think that they will be a member that fights and claws her way up to the top rankings very soon. A rookie with some great potential. July’s winner was none other than Kelly “Catch me Outside” Barasch. Way to go Kelly! Hopefully you can get a streak going like some of our other veteran players. This month’s question is about our coveted prize. VINO! Seeing it’s what we fight for every month, I might as well have a question about it. Here’s this month’s question: In Italy, they enjoy 3 very popular wines that are known as the “Killer B’s”. I would like you to give me the names of all 3 of them. That’s it. All correct answers will be entered in the drawing to win. Just remember, you can’t win if you don’t play.
Club Paesano Dues:
Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you.
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:
We’re sending our thoughts and prayers, for the speedy recovery of our own Kelly Barasch. Kelly had major back surgery a couple of months ago, and she is currently starting her rehab. Kelly is doing well and as always, is in great spirits. Let’s continue to wish her well in her recovery. Also please keep Marilyn Burchak (Doug’s Mother) in your prayers too. Let’s keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers. We all could use a prayer! If you would like to add anyone you know on our prayer chain, please let me know and I will add them to our next newsletter. Thanks.
Final Thoughts:
I know that you all have heard me beat this drum before, but I feel like I need to reiterate it every now and then. You are all members of a FANTASTIC thing here. CLUB PAESANO! It was a club that was founded by a group of immigrants from our Motherland that came here without anything, but wanted to keep their Italian traditions alive, and wanted to be around like-minded people. A lot of it may have been to be able to communicate as well. English was foreign to them but they got together and learned the language and worked hard in their new found homeland. They also got together and formed Club Paesano. Incorporated in 1955, our club still remains strong and is still growing while others are folding and closing their doors. This club is still open and active, because of the work that our members put in and give back. Just like our founders, we need to share the load to keep this going. We need to bring in new members that want to be a part of what is so special here and want to work hard to keep it moving forward. We need our current members to volunteer, and to help support our events. Anyway, will do, whether it’s physical labor, working a booth, bringing in guests, etc. we need everyone to step up and help. The hard work can’t always be done by the same 12 people all the time. We have a membership of 85, I’m sure that a good percentage of our membership is still active enough to lend a hand every once in a while, and can come out when needed. I’m doing my best to give back more, to our members. I strongly believe that we deserve some added benefits and bonuses for being a member of Club Paesano. “Heritage Night”, the” Hawaiian Luau”, “Fun Committee Nights Out”, etc. I want us all to enjoy these things, but I would also like to see a little more participation when it comes to getting things done for the club. Come to our events, promote, sell tickets, help set up in the mornings. The more people we have makes for lighter work. I do appreciate the membership, and would love to see it grow and to keep our club going for another 100 years. Be a proud Paesano, and enjoy this great thing that our ancestors built for us. Let’s make them proud!
Salute!
Rick.