Presidents Message:
Ciao tutti, as always, I hope that this issue of LaCarota finds you all, happy, healthy and safe!
Has anyone been doing anything interesting? Vacations, or planning? Made any cool purchases? Maybe something you have always wanted or it just looked interesting. I just booked a trip back to the mother country, Italia. I know that our brother Mario is going soon, and a couple of our members have just returned. Daniela Sardo and Lynn Piraino enjoyed a vacation there. Hopefully you can all make it back, or for the 1st time, if you have never been. I hope that you are all getting ready for the nicer weather to come and getting a chance to enjoy everything that the outdoors have to offer. Enjoy everything that this great state has to offer you. A perfect mix of all!
Spring Dance:
Last Saturday, May 17th, we enjoyed our annual Spring Dance. This year we put a little twist on it by making it a country – western affair. As it turned out, the twist worked out and it was a great event! We’ve been trying to change things up a bit, and I have to say that everything that we’ve been trying has been a success! At our last Carnevale Dance in February, we tried using a DJ, for the 1st time in a long while. Huge success! Nothing but positive feedback. At our Spring Dance, we went with a Country- Western theme with a great band, and it was an even bigger success! This just proves to me that we can’t stay stagnant, we have to stay on top of things and we have to keep changing with the time! It’s the only way to stay relevant in this ever-changing world that we live in! We need to keep our members and the public interested in everything that we do so keeping it fresh really works! Even our famous Chef, Marc Battilega changed up his menu a bit. Mixed pasta with the most tender sausage ever. It was fantastic! I heard so many great things about the food. Everyone loved it. Marc, thank you for being flexible and creative, it really was a hit! I would also like to thank our VP, John Benagni and Sergeant of Arms, Greg DeMaestri for stepping up and chairing this event. Your help was noticeable and very helpful to me and our membership. The ideas and band you both brought in were fantastic. For those of you that missed this event, I have to say that you all missed a hell of a great time. The Sweetwater Band was unbelievably talented. They were a country band, but they had such a wide genre of music that they played. Country, rock, disco, Neil Diamond, etc. It kept everyone out on the dance floor all night long. If you’ve never had the chance to hear them, please look them up and go see them live. I guarantee that they won’t disappoint! Again, a great time had by one and all! Special thanks to all of you that came out in the morning to set up and stayed late to help clean up. As always, thank you to Marc Battilega and his whole family for running the kitchen and keeping us fed! Dino Gavazza, Lisa Kern, Larry & Becky Cereghino for assisting with the food service. John Kern and Jimmy Calcagno for running the door. Mario Pompei and Chris Siri for running the wine bar. “Lil” Mario Mastrangelo for selling 50/50 tickets, Steve Leonetti, Tommy Alabastro, Bob Bevilacqua, Jim Burch, Lori Colbert, Domenic Giusto and Mike Potestio for setting up. If there’s anyone I’ve missed, please accept my apologies. The Paesano Bocce Club was our charity and they did well. I’ll touch more on that in our bocce section. For those of you that missed it, you missed a great time, but I’m hoping that you will all be able to make it to our next big event, our Concert in the Park on Saturday August 2nd, which once again, will be a whole lot different. Change is good my friends! We’ll see you there!
La Polenta Dinner / Scholarship Presentation:
On Wednesday June 4th, we will celebrate a great get together with our annual “La Polenta” Dinner / Scholarship Presentation. This dinner will take the place of June’s monthly meeting, so there will be no membership meeting for June. Instead, we will enjoy a wonderful meal of polenta to be shared with not only our fellow members, but our whole Italian community in the Portland and Vancouver area. That’s right, this meal is to be shared with all of our fellow Italians, so please feel free to invite any Italian that you may know to come and break bread with all of us, member or not. This is a chance for all of us to get together and enjoy a huge Italian meal with one of the most iconic Italian staples out there. Polenta was created and has been served in Italy for centuries. The whole idea of this dinner is to get us all together like we used to do at our Nonna’s house for Sunday dinner. Eat, drink and enjoy each other’s company. Just like Nonna’s house however, we’ll all have a job on this joyous occasion. You all need to take a small roll in putting this dinner together. We will need people to come in early starting at 4pm to start our set up. Chairs, tables and dinnerware. We’ll need people to help in the kitchen and to serve the platters to the tables. If you can’t make it early, you can stay later to help clean up. Of course, we will need some hungry people to eat all of this food as well. Marc will need some meat to mix into the sauce, so if you are willing to volunteer to cook a roast of some kind, I’m sure that he’ll appreciate that. Beef, pork or chicken roast and / or veggies would be great. Club Paesano will provide soft drinks and water but we encourage you to bring your favorite bottle of wine to enjoy or share with friends. One, two, three or however many bottles you would like to bring. The more, the merrier! LoL! After our wonderful dinner, we will present and introduce our 2025 Club Paesano Scholarship winners with their $1000 scholarship. This year we will have 4 recipients! They were so talented and the choices were so close that the committee decided to give out 4 this year because of the gracious donation that we received from Weston Kia, thanks to Vinny Curletto. This year our recipients are, Amelia Anderson, Brady Angelo, Stephen Crover and Nicolas Michaud. We’ll meet all of them along with their family’s that night. Congratulations all! If you can volunteer a roast, please reach out to Marc Battilega or myself to let us know. Please show up when you can, and enjoy this wonderful Club Paesano Italian feast!
Concert in the Park;
On Saturday August 2nd, we will have our 9th annual “Concert in the Park”. Like all our events so far this year, you can expect another change! With this year’s event, we will incorporate an all-day event! We will start the day off with a Farmer’s Market, run by our newest members, Bridget Merrill- Haines & Micheal Merrill which will lead into our Charity, “Calabarzon’s” musical event and fundraiser. After that, we will roll into our Club Paesano’s “Concert in the Park”. What a day we have in store for you! My advice to you all is to just take the day off and make it a “Club Paesano” Day & Night! Come in the morning to enjoy and purchase your fares at the Farmer’s Market followed by a Filipino lunch and concert. Taking a small break, to return and be thoroughly taken care of by our Club Paesano’s Concert in the Park, where you will eat a fantastic dinner then be entertained by the talented “5 Guys Named Moe”, who will have you dancing all night long! What a day! All taking place in the beauty that is Cedarville Park. I couldn’t think of a better place to hold such an event! The space, the trees, the fantastic food and entertainment. Where else can you go to enjoy such a diverse event with market, food and entertainment. What a melting pot of FUN! Our Concert in the Park will start at 4:30pm and will run till 11pm as usual but I am encouraging you all to please enjoy the whole experience that we are putting together for you! A farmer’s market, Mid-day concert and evening concert, with food, and drink to go along with it for the whole day!
With all that is happening and since this will be an all-day affair, I am declaring this to be an “ALL HANDS ON” event. We will need help from everyone, and any little thing that you can do will help. This is our club and our event. Let’s please do everything we can to help, volunteer and make this one of our best events to date! Everything we do is for our members and our club. I will get our “Volunteer Coordinators” very soon. Once they are announced, I would like for all of you that will be in town and attending to reach out to them to pick a position that you would like to work. Please help them, and let them know what rolls you can take to make this event great. If you don’t contact them, then they will be contacting you all. I want to see you all have fun and enjoy yourself. I want to see you with your families and all of your guests that you invite, but we will still need some help in putting this whole day together. Do your part, then enjoy the rest of the day. That’s all we need! More info will be forwarded to you all via email and July’s meeting. Let’s all have a great time, and also showcase our beautiful club and all that Club Paesano / Cedarville Park has to offer to our friends! Go to clubpaesano.org to purchase your tickets now for this day packed with fun! More info to follow.
Paesano Bocce Club:
If you are a bocce member and player, you have been waiting 9 months for this announcement and that is, “THE START OF THE 2025 BOCCE SEASON!” Paesano Bocce members, that time is now here! You have been patient and some of you have even had to play at inferior courts in the off season, but never fear, Paesano Bocce is BACK! Again, we will host 4 nightly leagues from Monday thru Thursday with the most talented players in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, my fellow members, Paesano Bocce is the home of Champions! Please be a part of it if you are not all ready. If you are even curious about the game and maybe playing elsewhere, please let us know. Anyone on our bocce board of directors or a PBC member can bring you out to explain and play the game with you, so you can learn about the sport and what a terrific game it really is! Please do not hesitate to ask. Get a hold of me and I will get you connected to a day on the courts. Our leagues will start on the 1st week of June, so you still have some time to join our league. Even if you come as a single player, without a team, we will set you up with a team. You also have the option of playing part time or as a substitute. This is also another great way to meet people and to learn the sport. This past Sunday, the 18th, we hosted our annual “Meet & Greet”, where new and experienced players came together to teach the sport of bocce and get our newest and interested players involved learning and playing at least 3 games throughout the day. This day was great for our newbies to play with our experienced players to not only learn but play the game correctly. It was a terrific day for all. Thanks to all of you that came out to participate and especially to our crew that consistently shows up, rain or shine with a smile! You know who you are. Props! At our Club Paesano Spring Dance, Paesano bocce was our charity, raising funding for our “RAISE the ROOF” project. I’m very happy to say that it was a huge success, raising $3800 that will go toward building our roof over our “World Class” bocce courts. We asked all of our teams to donate a basket that would go towards a silent auction. Thank you to all of our teams that did come through with either a donation of items or money. Anything and everything helped to raise those funds. It was a lot of work, but we got it done! I’d like to thank everyone that was involved in getting it going and making it a success. Our Paesano Bocce Board, Mario Pompei, Kelly Barasch, Doug Burchak, Lori De Maestri, Paul Barasch and myself. Special thanks to Lori DeMaestri for gathering donations and putting our donation tables together. Daniela Sardo and Lynn Piraino for gathering and preparing even after their beautiful vacations away. They still came back to support and to help the cause. Bob Bevilaqua for making sure that the tables were watched and taken care of. All of our newbies who stepped up in donating and promoting. What a crew! It was a success from top to bottom and I’m looking forward to a great and competitive season this year! If you don’t play, please come and check out what it’s all about! Let’s keep it rolling, and I’ll see you on the courts!
Club Paesano Dues:
Our CP dues for 2025 are due on June 1st. Please contact our treasurer, John Kern to make arrangements for payments. Also please take care of any past payments of dues or dance tickets that you may still owe from our past events and 2024. Please take care of it sooner than later so John doesn’t have to chase you. John is a very busy man so let’s make it easy for him!
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.
Cedarville Park Shares:
Need a good reason to purchase Cedarville Shares? Get Astronomical savings on Park Rentals and save Thousands!
If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at sdpetruzelli@comcast.net .
Thoughts and Prayers:
I hope that most of you were able to make it out to our long-time member, Ron Dove’s Funeral service and celebration of life, afterwards. Ron was truly loved by his family and also his Club Paesano family. Although I didn’t know Ron for a long period of time, I really thought that he was a great man and a great member. He was always smiling and was happy to see everyone. May he celebrate his eternity in the kingdom of heaven with our heavenly Father. I also want to let you know of the passing of Jayne Pompei’s sister Tina. She passed away a month ago. May God please bless our families and all of our Club Paesano members.
LaCarota Question:
Well now, I guess the old saying holds true. “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. The reason I say that is because with all of the newcomers and multiple winners we have had win our coveted bottle of vino, one person always seems to stay the same. The “Wine winning Champion of the World”, and that man is, (Drum roll please!) Mario, “The Wine Winning” POM,,,,,,PEI!! The man is now a legend in my eyes. Just when you think that he is down and out, he arises like the Phoenix, to fly by and pluck that bottle of wine from our unsuspecting players. That is exactly what makes him the wine “GOAT” right now. A resilience and a patient desire to want to win and to stay in the game. Even when old man time comes knocking, Mario just slams the door in his face! Way to go Brother Mario, you will fill that cellar soon enough! Now, with all of that hope being spewed, are you all just going to let the “GOAT” walk all over you? Will you let him build that cellar, or will you start building your own? Let’s see who will take down the Champ in July. With that, I bring you this month’s question. Now that every one of you should have a new Club Paesano hand book, I can start to pull questions from the book again to make it fair. Plus, it will give our new members reason to actually start reading it and getting to know some of our history and by-laws! Here is this month’s question. I want you all to tell me where our very 1st Club Paesano meetings were held before the purchase of Cedarville Park. Be specific. Only one answer! That’s it, very simple. Hopefully one of our newest members will rise up and snatch that sought after bottle of vino out of the “GOAT’S” hooves! You can’t win if you don’t play, so if you’re thirsty, get to it! All correct answers will be entered to win. Please email me at rchabs23@hotmail.com with your answer. Good Luck!
Final Thoughts:
In my final thoughts segment, I would just like to ask all of our members what being a CP member means to each of you. That being said, I would love to hear everything, whether good or bad. I want to know what your expectations are and what you’d like to see changed. If you are happy with the way things are going, please let me know that as well. In a changing world, we need to change too, but some of our Club Paesano ways can also stay the same. Please let me know why you joined and some of the reasons you stay. Please let me know if you would like to see us keep some traditions or get rid of them. This club was formed a long time ago by some great hard-working Italians that immigrated from the old country wanting to keep Italian traditions alive in this new land and to also be able to hand something down to their families for generations to come. They worked hard to keep it running and to make it a home away from home. That is exactly the way that I would love to see it keep going. This is a place for us Italians to enjoy and to call home! Please feel free to answer these questions to me directly or through email, phone or text. I would love to hear back from all of you. We all have a say and together we will keep this beautiful club alive and well!
Salute, Rick.