LaCarota

May 2024                             

President’s Message:

Ciao e Buona giornata. As always, I hope that this addition of our newsletter finds you all, Happy, healthy and safe! Hopefully all of you are getting things accomplished and completed. Is anyone making any travel plans for this summer? Prices are pretty inexpensive right now on flights over to Europe. It would be worth checking out if you were even thinking of it. A trip on the fly may be just what the Dr. ordered. I think that every once in a while, we need to pamper ourselves and recharge the batteries with a trip or even a relaxing “Staycation”. Whatever you do, make it fun and stress free! I will be leaving in a couple of days to fly back home to Canada to spend some well-deserved time with my family. I haven’t been back there in a few years and look forward to seeing everyone and getting a good intake of my mom’s cooking. It’s the best! I’m sure that most of you can say that too. Well, whatever you end up doing, have a great time and be safe

!

Spring Dance:

On Saturday May 11th we will have our annual “Spring dance”. As always, our doors open at 5:30pm and we will keep the party going till 11pm. Tickets are $25. Our last 2 dances have been pretty successful, so let’s stay in the spirit and make our Spring Dance just as good! Tickets are on sale now! Go to our website at www.clubpaesano.org to purchase yours today. Don’t wait till the last minute and risk losing your favorite table. Our events are open to the public (21 yrs.) so please invite your family, friends and all of your acquaintances too! Please help us to reach the 300-guest mark. Do what you can to promote. Share it on your social media, take and post fliers and get the word out. The more the merrier and it all benefits our club and our members. Like I’ve said in the past. If you can’t make it, please give your tickets away to someone that will enjoy the event and hopefully become a long-time attendee. Make it a gift and know that you are helping your club out! Our Charity partner is “The Journey ” in Gresham. They are affiliated to “My Father’s House” who partnered with us last year. They help to transition houseless families into a home and to help them get back on their feet financially. Our live entertainment is by “Playback Jones”, a band that will have you out on the dance floor all night long! So far, we have only sold 38 tickets to date and we are less than a month away. Don’t rely on our charities to bring in all the guests, let’s do it ourselves and make it a “Sellout” and have some FUN!

Club Paesano Scholarship:

As you all know, we have our 1st Club Paesano Scholarship Fund in place now. We worked very hard at our fundraiser a couple of weeks ago to raise funding for it and we were able to raise $1700 after all expenses. The Club Paesano board of directors voted to add another $1300 to make it a grand total of $3000. The Scholarship committee and I have decided to divide it into 3 scholarships of $1000 each. The scholarship forms can be found and downloaded on our Club Paesano website at www.clubpaesano.org All the information for eligibility can be found on the forms. All forms, whether emailed or sent through the mail, must be returned no later than Friday May 10th. This will give our committee the required time that they will need to go over them and choose 3 winners. The announcement and presentation of the scholarships will be made at our June membership meeting which is now our “All Italians invited” Polenta Dinner on Wednesday June 5th. I’d like to thank our Scholarship committee once again for their fast work of getting the application done quickly so that it could actually go into effect this year to help out 3 lucky scholars in the fall. Good luck to all of our candidates! 

Heritage Dinner:

This past Sunday, April 14th we celebrated our 3rd annual Heritage Dinner. Once again, our member and chef, Greg DeMaestri out did himself with another fabulous menu. The food was dynamite! He was assisted by his brother-in-law Dennis Grieng, his son Gianni, and our very own master of the kitchen, Jimmy Calcagno. Thank you to Lori Bass (Greg’s fiancé), Kelly Barasch and Doug Burchak for serving the meal to all of our guests. The afternoon was as good as the last 2 years, with great food, conversations, laughs and my favorite, reminiscing about the past. I thank everyone that took the microphone and said a few words about our history. The hard work and involvement from everyone from the day that our lodge was purchased to the present day. A lot of nice stories and facts were shared. Without that strong foundation, this club wouldn’t have been able to stand the test of time. It was with that work ethic and continued hard work and volunteering that this club functions today and will hopefully continue to strive for years and years ahead! Please keep supporting and be involved in your club. We are a club of volunteers that are needed to keep us going. Please do your part to contribute and to keep it moving in a positive direction!

Paesano Bocce Club:

It is mid-April and the smell of BOCCE is in the air! On Tuesday April 9th, we had our “Kick Off” bocce meeting for both existing and new members. We registered teams, took payment and went over new and old rules and changes. I was very happy to see about 55 people show up with excitement in their eyes. I am also extremely happy and proud to say that our league has now officially expanded to 4 FULL nights! Last year we did have 4 nights, but Wednesday and Thursdays didn’t have a full 8 teams each night. Now we do! Infect, the interest and want to play is so high that some of our nights may expand to 9 teams with a “bye” built in. We have extra teams and individuals that want to play this year and we will do our best to accommodate everyone. We don’t want to turn anyone away. Our tournament director and team coordinator, Brad Cotton, will do his best to make it happen. Special thanks go out to Mario Pompei, our President and the rest of our board for going out and stomping the pavement for new members, and boy do have quite a few joining. The word is out and the sport is catching on here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a fantastic time to be involved! Speaking of involvement. The bocce club will hold our annual “Meet & Greet” event on Sunday May 19th at 9am. This will be a great opportunity for existing and new players to come out and meet each other. We will go through the rules and history of the game followed by a mini

tournament where we will team up experienced and new players to play against other teams. This will give our newest players the opportunity to learn from our veteran players. Come if you’re available and enjoy a few hours of bocce and comradery. We will provide a small lunch and you are welcome to bring your favorite adult beverages for your consumption if you’d like. The official start to our league nights is the 1st week of June. April also brought the 1st official tournament of the season in the Pacific Northwest. Our dear friends from the north had their season kick off tournament in Auburn, WA. A big group of Paesano’s from our bocce club went up to participate in it and to support our friends. It was two days of bocce filled with a lot of close and exciting matches. Saturday was a doubles tourney and Sunday was for teams. Both days had “A” and “B” divisions. I’m happy to say that my partner, Brad Cotton and I took 2nd in the “A” division of doubles along with John and Skylar Benagni taking 2nd in the “B” division. In team play on Sunday, our team including Benny Mititiero and myself took 3rd place in the “A” division. All and all it was a great bocce weekend. Thanks to all of the Paesano members that attended and helped our bocce brothers and sisters to the north. If you are still interested in playing or need to find out any information about our upcoming season or to donate to our “Raise the Roof” project, please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com”. You can also speak to any of our board members. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, Lori Bass or myself. Here’s to a great season!  

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending. Also, to our new members you can purchase at any time.

Thoughts and Prayers;

Thanks to all of you that came out to support my family in our Celebration of life ceremony this past Saturday for both of my in-laws, James and Geraldine Sells. It was a very nice ceremony, with a lot of great stories told of their kindness and what great people they were. I’m glad that you were all there to support and enjoy the day with us. Extra prayers for Jack Fazio, who is in the hospital and not doing very well. If you know Jack and his family, please reach out to them and give them your support, I’m sure that the family will appreciate it. Thoughts and prayers to Pete Rebagliati’s grandson as well. If you have anyone that you would like to add to our Thoughts & Prayers segment, please contact me and I will add them. May God bless all of our CP Members.

LaCarota Question:

Well, just when we thought the “King” was back and getting comfortable again, he gets knocked off his throne by long time contributor but spotty winner Johnny “The Gentleman” Benagni. John answers a lot of my questions, but Lady Luck hasn’t been very good to him, until now! Will there be a new run of victories for Johnny or will he be a “One hit wonder”? Come on John and the rest of you, keep at it so we can keep the “King” on his toes, and spread the wealth! Seeing I’m heading back to Canada, my question will be Canadian related. As most of you know, I was born in Canada to my parents that both immigrated from Italy. I moved to Portland in 1996 and have resided here ever since. So, my question is this. “Who is the other famous Italian/ Canadian celebrity that moved from Canada to Oregon, specifically Multnomah County and has made their home here too?” (One hint, this person came from the same province as my beloved NHL Hockey team) If you truly know me, then this question should be a no brainer! Loll! All correct answers given to me before our next Membership meeting will be entered into this month’s contest. You can’t win if you don’t play so Good Luck!

Final Thoughts:

As my family and friends celebrated the life of my In-laws, James and Geraldine this past weekend, I couldn’t help but sit back and really take some time to think about life. Our lives and how precious it is. Sometimes we can go through our days wrapped up in work, stressful situations and all the things that life throws at us on a regular basis. We get caught up in it all and tend to forget about our families, especially those who are older. I think that we get comfortable and we feel that tomorrow will be another day and that our family members and friends will be around forever, but as it struck me this weekend, they won’t be. As you all know, we need to enjoy our time with each other and celebrate every waking moment we have with them. Visit them often. Laugh and love often. I don’t have to remind any of you, but life is truly short, so take in every bit of it and love the ones you’re with! Here is to you and all of our Famiglia’s including our Club Paesano Family. May we enjoy and cherish every moment with them! Take care of yourselves and ti Saluto!

Cheers,

Rick

April 2024                                    LaCarota

President’s Message:

Hello everyone. My Club Paesano Famiglia! As always, I hope that this addition of our newsletter finds you all, Happy, Healthy and Safe! Happy St. Patty’s Day to all my Irish – Italian members out there. When it comes to a party, we Italians can have fun no matter whose party it is! The word is still out on whether St. Patrick was considered Italian, being born to Roman parents, or was he British, being that he was born in Britain. Maybe a good LaCarota question? We’ll see. We’ve “Sprung Forward” and added an extra hour of daylight to our day and today is actually the 1st day of Spring. I’m so excited to get this cold and rain behind us and get to the comfortable temperatures and drier days. Shorts, t’s and sandals is my type of fashion and being out on the water, beach or bocce courts is my kind of day! This past weekend was perfect! It was in the 70’s with the sun shining. I know that a lot of our members took to their lawns and gardens and anything to do with the outdoors to get a start on making the outside look great again. I hope that you got to take advantage of it too. Good times are ahead so enjoy it my friends!

1st Annual Club Paesano Scholarship Fundraiser:

I am so happy to announce that our 1st Club Paesano Scholarship Fundraiser was held this past Saturday. Although we didn’t have the attendance that I was hoping for, the night was still a successful one. We did manage to raise some funds and when we calculate the final number, I will let you all know. If you couldn’t make it last night but would like to make a donation to the fund, please bring a check, cash or your credit card to our next meeting and see John Kern. He will be happy to take care of it for you! We had some nice raffle and silent auction items to win. I’d like to thank John Benagni and family, Vinny & Kristy Curletto, Daniela Sardo, Debra Ceglie for donating items, and to my wife Diane for going shopping for our CP donation baskets. Thank you to John Kern, Geno and John Benagni, Dino Gavazza, Steve Leonetti, Daniela Sardo and Chris Siri for coming in early to help set up in the morning. Mario and Jayne Pompei for coming in to set up the bar and run it throughout the night along with Danny Taylor. Thank you to Kelly Barasch and Doug Burchak, for helping give out the raffle items. A huge thank you to Greg DeMeastri, Jimmy Calcagno and Lori Bass for coming in and getting all of our delicious food cooked and feeding our guests. Another special shout out to our newly formed Scholarship Committee who are getting all of the guidelines set for the Scholarship application. Our committee members are, Dino Gavazza, Vinny and Kristy Curletto, Anna and Reza Nassib Fazio, Donna Howard and Phil Potestio, contributing all the way from the Mother Country. This was hopefully the 1st of many more to come and an annual tradition that will continue to help our future Italian professionals.

Gresham Chamber of Commerce “Unofficial Happy Hour”:

On Wednesday April 10th at 5pm, Club Paesano will be hosting the Gresham Chamber of Commerce’s “Unofficial Happy Hour”. This is an event that any Chamber member can host to show and advertise their facilities and to have a chance to rub elbows with our fellow Chamber members. They are usually held at our members’ restaurants or pubs, so I figured, “Why not our Club?” We have a beautiful venue with a bar, kitchen and plenty of space. We hosted one last summer where we had a chance to showcase our outdoor facilities. This time I wanted to have it inside, to show off our beautiful lodge. It’s a great way to advertise Cedarville lodge and a very good way to get Chamber members to support our Club Paesano events too. We’ve had a great relationship with the Chamber for the last 3 years, and our friendship with a lot of their members continues to grow. I have so many of them wanting to come to our events and rent the lodge. If you haven’t been to an “Unofficial” Chamber happy hour, you should try to make it out if you’re available. We’ll be serving food for purchase and have a “No Host” bar as well. Like I said, it’s a great time and a good chance to get to know some of your fellow Chamber members, plus another good reason not to have to cook. Let us do it for you. The event is free to attend, so come on out and represent your club! 

Heritage Night:

On Sunday April 14th at 3:30 pm, Club Paesano will once again be hosting its 3rd Annual “Heritage Night”. Just like the past 2 years, this will be a night of fantastic food, great company and a chance to learn about your “Club Paesano” heritage! Our very own member and Chef, Greg DeMaestri will once again be preparing us a 4-course dinner to start the festivities. Trust me, if you haven’t been to the last 2, you’ll want to attend this one. His dinners have been outstanding! After dinner, we will have a chance to listen to our senior members tell us about some of our history and how our Club Paesano came to be. As always, I’ll be looking for our members that have some years with the club to step up and give us a history lesson and to share some of their experiences growing up as a Paesano. I’d also like to add some old Paesano pictures, videos, literature or even garments, to what we already have, to display for our newer Paesano members that haven’t been around as long. It’s a fantastic night of comradery, history and a great chance to learn more about your club. We’ll have some music going in the background, but will turn it up and clear the dance floor if anyone gets in the mood to “Shake it off”! The price of this event will be $15 per adult and $10 for children who are 12 to 5yrs of age. 4 yrs. and younger are free. You can bring your own bottles of wine to consume and CP will provide the beer and soft drinks for free. Please “RSVP” so I can get Chef Gregorio an accurate headcount to purchase the proper amount of food. Thank you and I hope to see you all there! RSVP @ [email protected] or 503-891-7374

Business Excellence Award; Gresham Chamber of Commerce:

I am very proud to announce that this year, Club Paesano was nominated to the Gresham Chamber of Commerce” Business Excellence Award”! It’s such an honor to be recognized for all of our hard work, by our community. It really shows that the people that come to our events and have been to our beautiful lodge realize what we do here. It’s great! We were nominated amongst some well-known businesses that are just as deserving, but it would be a nice feather in our cap to actually take the award back to the lodge. Either or, we are being noticed out there folks. Keep up the great work and keep spreading the word. Invite family, friends and whoever you can to our events. Our hard work is paying off!

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending. Also, to our new members you can purchase at any time.

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Our 2024 Season is starting to ramp up and before you know it, we’ll be out rolling on those four “World Class” courts we have out there! Our Season “Kick Off” meeting will be held at the club on Tuesday April 9th at 6:30pm. At this meeting we will format the new season, go over league policies and any new rule changes. This is also the time that we start registering teams. If you have your teams set, then fill out our online roster sheet along with paying your annual dues. If you don’t have a team yet but would like to play or need more information, you are also welcome to join us. We’ve made some very big and positive changes to our website. It’s been updated and will make things very easy for you. Our new sign-up page will allow everyone to register and pay online, so you won’t have to worry about mailing or bringing cash or checks to me at the courts anymore. You can also make donations to our new roof there too. If you haven’t been on the site in a while, you should go on and check it out. www.paesanobocceclub.com Some of you have been fortunate enough to play indoors this off season, but I know that it’s probably been hard on the rest of you that haven’t rolled a ball since the end of our Summer or Fall leagues. For those of you that have been longing to play, you won’t have much longer to wait. The weather has been getting better, and some of us have been able to go out there to do some clean up and play a few games. The courts are still in need of more cleaning and we are in the middle of putting up some new fencing on the north side of the courts. We are installing a new, sharp looking rod aluminum fence. It’s the same style as was placed around the lodge. Not only will it look fantastic, but we will be selling space on it to hang banners and signs which can be purchased through the bocce league. Being that the fence faces north to the Spring Water trail, your advertising potential is huge as it’s viewed by hundreds of people every day that use the trail to bike, run and walk. If you own or work for a business, or just want to show off your family name, come and speak to us and purchase your sign or banner and your space now, while there is plenty of room. I’m sure that it will fill up really quick. I hope to see you at the next meeting and again on the courts!

Spring Dance:

On Saturday May 11th we will have our annual “Spring dance”. As always, our doors open at 5:30pm and we will keep the party going till 11pm. Tickets are $25. Our last 2 dances have been pretty successful, so let’s stay in the spirit and make our Spring Dance just as good! Tickets are on sale now! Go to our website at www.clubpaesano.org to purchase yours today. Don’t wait till the last minute and risk losing your favorite table. Our events are open to the public (21 yrs.) so please invite your family, friends and all of your acquaintances too! Please help us to reach the 300-guest mark. Do what you can to promote. Share it on your social media, take and post fliers and get the word out. The more the merrier and it all benefits our club and our members. Like I’ve said in the past. If you can’t make it, please give your tickets away to someone that will enjoy the event and hopefully become a long-time attendee. Make it a gift and know that you are helping your club out! Let’s make it a “Sellout” and have some FUN!

Thoughts & Prayers:

I’d like some extra prayers for my family. Unfortunately, we lost my father-in-law, James Sells 3 weeks ago. He was 93 years old and lived a good life. Jim loved the outdoors and liked to fish, play golf and he was also very active in his church. He was the father to my wife Diane and her brother Dale and also had 6 grandchildren that he loved deeply. Earlier this year we lost my mother-in-law; his beloved wife Geraldine Sells of 60 years. They are together again now for eternity in heaven. Diane and I invite you all to the memorial service for Jim & Gerry Sells on Saturday April 13th at 1pm located at Crossroads Christian Church. 2505 NE 102nd Ave. Portland. 97220. Reception following on site. I would also like to send extra prayers to our long-time bocce member, Brad Cotton. His father Mark Cotton, a long-time track coach at Grant High school also passed away last week. He was also 93. If you see Brad at our next bocce meeting, let him know that you’re praying for him. Thoughts and prayers to the health and wellbeing of all of our members and their loved ones. If you have someone that you would like to add to this segment, please let me know so I can put it in the next newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

The “King” is back!! Congrats goes out to the “Vino King” Mario POM-PEI, for getting himself back into the driver’s seat of this wine race we have going here. The Club Paesano Vino “500”! After a short drought, Mario the “Mauler’s” thirst was quenched once again! Like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play, so let’s see how many of you will bid to take away the King’s crown! Seeing that we just celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, let’s focus on this patron saint. Here is this month’s question. “What happened to St. Patrick when he was 16 yrs. old and is he truly Irish? That’s it. All correct answers will be entered in our drawing to win Mario’s bottle of wine! LOL!

Final Thoughts:

Easter is fast approaching and hopefully you’ll be sharing it with family, friends and loved ones. I’m sure that there will be plenty of food, drink and great fun. The children will be running around in search of easter eggs packed full of candy and treats left by Peter Cottontail. With all of the great dinners and family fun, let’s not forget the true meaning of this day. “HE HAS RISEN!”  Our God sacrificed his only son Jesus Christ to wash away our sins. It was an unselfish sacrifice that you could never even fathom, yet necessary to save all of us. Whether you are religious or not, at one time or another you might have been forced to make a sacrifice for your family and loved ones. It’s never been easy but hopefully it worked out for the best and made things so much better. Like our parents and ancestors before did for us. To the military, police force, firefighters and to all of our essential workers and service providers, that sacrifice to keep us safe and healthy, we thank you all. Please enjoy and cherish the time that you have with one another, and never take that time for granted. Have a Happy Easter, and we’ll see you at the next meeting. Buona Pasqua!

Salute,

Rick

March 2024                                        LaCarota

President’s message:

Buongiorno a tutti i soci del nostro Club Paesano. Come sempre, spero che questa newsletter ti trovi felice, sano e sicuro! There you go, some Italian for you. I hope that we are all doing well. It’s been a busy month with events and weather. We’ve had a lot of rain and wind, especially out here in the east, and it’s been quite a mess. Clean up has been slow, but we are all getting there. Speaking of clean up, we’ll be having a Spring cleanup at the club coming soon. I will let you all know when that date will be. The snow, ice and wind really took its toll at the club and the property. Downed trees, branches and debris all over. If anyone knows of someone that would like to cut up and haul away the wood, please let me know. There are some big cedars and firs that came down, but it would make for some great firewood if you needed it. Just think, Spring is around the corner. 70’s, shorts and sun. I can’t wait! Hopefully everyone will enjoy a nice Spring Break.

Super Bowl Watch Party:

On Sunday February 11th we hosted our annual “Super Bowl” watch party. What a game it was! The 49ers and Chiefs played one heck of a game. It was a real “nail biter” that went into overtime. In the end, I know that some of you celebrated, and some of you might have been a bit sore, but all and all, it was a great game that had the KC Chiefs winning yet another Super Bowl! Can we call them a dynasty yet? They are well on their way to becoming one of the best teams out there. Along with the great game, Club Paesano put on a fantastic party! We had roughly 100 guests that attended and had a wonderful time celebrating with us. Everyone that I spoke to said that it was one of the best watch parties that they had been to and plan on coming back next year. That’s great news! We had an “All you can eat buffet”, 3 huge big screens, side bets, squares, kids’ games and a very reasonable “No Host” bar. All this for $15. Probably the best deal in town! Every year our attendance has grown, so we must be doing something right. Special thanks to Marc Battilega who cooked all of the food and kept it coming out, making our guests very happy. Johnny Kern for working the door, Jimmy Calcagno, Chris Siri, Mario Pompei, and myself for working the bar. Geno Benagni for making the squares and side bets, manning the table all day. John Benagni for keeping our POS System working. Kelly Barasch, Dougie Burchak, for setting up and selling merchandise. I apologize to anyone that I may have missed. This event couldn’t have been done without all of your help. Thank you again. Let’s make next year even bigger! Go Dolphins!

Carnevale Dance:

What a busy month of events we have had for February. Our membership meeting, Superbowl Party, and on Saturday February 17th, our annual” Carnevale Dance”.

Once again, a party for the ages. Our “World Famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner, a fantastic charity partner, “Calabarzon” and the sweet, sweet sounds of our entertainment group, “Crescendo Skye”.  It was their 1st time performing at our club.The ingredients for a great time! We had roughly 275 guests attend and enjoy. Almost another “Sellout”. We came close. It would have been nice to have had 2 in a row. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic evening. The food was gone, the dance floor packed and our charity partner was very grateful with the monies that they received for their charity. I will get an exact number from them but they were very happy with the result and I’m positive that we will have a guaranteed partner for a long time. Our charity brought in over 150 guests. Let’s continue to make our events grow and become sellout after sellout. If you can’t make it to the event, just remember that you can always give your tickets away to friends that you feel would enjoy it and hopefully become regular guests at our events, our “Spring Dance” is coming up on Saturday May 11th.We are open to any new genre of music or style of event, but I need to lock something in pretty soon. I’m leaving it open to be a “Members Choice” event. If you want to be involved in planning the Spring Dance, and have ideas on what you’d like to see happen if different from what we have been doing, please get involved and get in touch with me so I can help make this happen. If you have a band or even a DJ in mind along with a good charity partner, that will be involved and bring out guests to support their cause and also help us with our bottom line, please ask them and let me know the result. I’d like to see our members happy, so this is a great chance to get involved and to help in making our Spring Dance another success. Get involved and make it great! Thank you.

Club Paesano Scholarship Fundraiser: 

I am very happy and proud to announce our 1st and hopefully Annual “Club Paesano Scholarship Fundraiser Dinner”. This is something that is very near and dear to my heart, and something that I’ve wanted to do for some time now. I discussed it with our board of directors, and it was a unanimous “Yes” to making it a reality! On Saturday March 23rd we will offer an “All you can eat” dinner which will include, Pasta Bolognese, Pasta Pesto, Sausage with peppers & onions, salad, rolls and dessert all for the low price of $25 for adults. Children 12 to 6 yrs. of age, $15. Infants 5 yrs. and younger will be free. This event will be open to the public and is “Family Friendly”, so please make sure to invite all of your family and friends. Strangers will work too! I will be sending out invitations to the rest of the Italian clubs in the Portland and Vancouver areas as well. We have supported many of their events and fundraisers so I’m hoping that they will help us out too. Besides raising funds via dinner tickets, I would also like to offer some gifts for raffle to create another source of revenue, along with monetary donations. If you can donate a raffle item such as a gift basket, gift card, bottle of wine, vacation home, tools etc., or procure an item from a business etc., that would be very much appreciated. We will raffle everything off with ALL PROCEEDS, from both dinner and raffle going to our Scholarship fund. Several members have approached me asking to be involved with our Scholarship Committee. As of now, our committee members are Dino Gavazza, Phil Potestio, Anna Fazio Nassib, Vinny Curletto, Donna Sunsiri and myself. I thank you all for stepping up and taking the lead on this. If you would like to be involved and join our committee, please let me know asap. Our youth is our future. Let us do everything we can to give them every opportunity to educate and grow. The doors open at 5pm and tickets will be sold at the door. We will accept credit cards or cash for everything. Please do your best to make it out and to support this fantastic cause! See you there.

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee is alive and well and is still meeting for our weekly “Monday Night Social”. This is a great night to meet up with fellow members and have some fun to start the week off right! Eat, drink, laugh and maybe win some dollars too in “LRC”. Most importantly, having FUN! We are planning some future events and I will let you all know when we have them scheduled. Please stay tuned! Let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas for future FC events.

Paesano Bocce News:

Even though there isn’t any bocce being played on our courts, our “Bocce Committee” is hard at work, planning for this upcoming year’s events. League nights, tournaments, rentals and most importantly, planning and strategizing to get a roof built over our 4 beautiful “World Class” courts. A roof over these courts propels us to a new dimension in the world of bocce. It puts us on the map as one of the major facilitators of bocce in the Pacific Northwest. Having a roof would allow us to play bocce and run the facility all year long, bringing in players from around the continent for high stakes tournaments and huge club recognition. Not only tournaments, but court rentals from the general public, organizations, corporations, retirement homes, etc. The sky’s the limit with this. If you would like to help with our “Raise the Roof” project or anything else dealing with bocce, please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com or speak to one of our board members, Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch or myself. Any one of us will be more than happy to answer any question that you may have about our club. Come on out, roll some balls and have some fun!

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending. Also, to our new members you can purchase at any time.

Thoughts & Prayers:

Thoughts and Prayers go out to all of our Club Paesano members and their loved ones. I would love some extra prayers for my father-in-law Jim. At 93 yrs. of age, he’s at the point of his life where he needs extra prayers and the will to live. Hopefully our extra prayers will keep him comfortable and pain free. Thank you. If you have anyone that you would like me to include on our prayer chain, please let me know, so I can add them in our next newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

I am starting to see our participant group expanding in the monthly “LaCarota Question” This is a very good thing. A little friendly competition is always good for the soul! Congratulations goes out to last month’s winner, John “King Kong” Kern. Johnny successfully climbed the “Empire State” of vino with his new bottle of red. Now he’ll have to swipe and swing away at the existing and “Want to be” winners coming at him to take away his coveted prize. Will he successfully defend his new found title, or will he tumble to the bottom of the tower with this month’s contenders. Will “Bam Bam” “The Mauler”, “Superfly” or “My Cousin”, jump back into the winner ‘s circle to make “King Kong” a “One hit Wonder”, or will he be a long stay on the throne. We will soon find out. This month’s question is; “Which Club Paesano member was our very 1st President and what other CP award were they the 1st recipient of? That’s it. Another easy question for you all. I should receive a huge number of answers for this easy one. Let’s get your name on the winners list and give me the chance to give you your very own “Nickname”. LOL! All correct answers emailed to me before our next Member’s meeting, will be entered to win.  Good luck!

Final Thoughts:

My final thoughts for this month are short and sweet and just this. Please keep in mind that your club needs you. Without your attendance and participation, we will lose what our ancestors and members who came before us, worked so hard to build. I know that I beat this drum a lot, but I can’t emphasize enough how much I want to see all of your smiling faces more often and at the same time. I want to see you at our meetings, our events, our extra “Fun Committee” outings, and anything else that is Club Paesano related. Not only do I want to see your faces, but I want to see your participation as well. This Club runs with volunteers, help and the expertise of its members. No one gets paid here; we just do it for the love of the game! The pride of being part of a great thing. When you think of it, not just anyone can be a member here, but you are, so be proud to be a part of this special group and try to do your part in keeping it going for years and years to come! Be good to your families, friends and your CP Family too, but most important, be good to yourselves. 

Take care, “Abbi cura di te e Saluta”!

Rick

January 2024                          LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Hello my fellow Club Paesano Members. How are we all doing? As always, I hope it’s healthy, happy and safe of course! I know that in last month’s newsletter I said that I couldn’t believe that we were already nearing Thanksgiving. Well, this month’s newsletter I’ll say that I can’t believe we are only a few days away from Christmas day. By the time you get this, it may already have passed! I hope that you all have had time to do all of your Christmas shopping and been able to prepare the house with decorations, lights and the greatest tree you could find! If you are hosting Christmas eve or Christmas day, I hope that you all have had time to do your preparation and it turns out to be the best Christmas ever. As a kid, the day couldn’t get here fast enough. We spent all year figuring out what we wanted from Santa Claus, going through all of the store catalog’s toy sections, cutting out the pictures and posting them in a card to Santa or on the fridge for mom and dad to look at and add to their list. It was such a simple time when we were kids. I love watching the “Christmas Story” every year at this time because young Ralphie reminds me so much of myself and how our Christmases were like back then. Very cold and snowy, but it was some of the best times that I can remember. I hope that you all enjoy both Christmas Eve and Day surrounded by your families and friends. In Italian tradition, eat a ton and enjoy and have a Happy New Year!

Christmas Dinner:

Our Christmas Dinner was held on Sunday December 10th. As always, it did not disappoint! We had roughly 240 members and families combined this year. What a fantastic turnout! It was great to see some faces that I hadn’t seen for a while and to see all of the smiles on the children’s faces. They had a blast in the “Kid’s section” and when Santa Claus arrived! The little ones couldn’t contain themselves when the “Big Guy” finally made it into the lodge! Once again, the food didn’t disappoint. We had smoked Tri-Tip, chicken, potatoes, veggies, salad rolls and dessert. What a meal. Our caterers are definitely a keeper. We will make sure to have them back next year. I’d like to thank Chris Calcagno who played good Ol Saint Nick at this dinner and for the last 24 years of having our celebration. I’d also like to thank my daughter Adriana for manning the spinning wheel and the kid’s play section for us. She always has a great time doing it. Also, I’d like to thank the members that came in that morning to help set up and decorate. The Christmas Dinner is also the time that we bring in our newest Board of Directors and say goodbye and thanks to the ones that are leaving.  Thank you to long time board member and Secretary, Jimmy Siri. Jim has spent a long time on the board and always brought a spark and creativity to us, along with his detailed minutes and famous “Weather Report”. “It was a sunshiny day and the temperature was a warm 80 degrees”!  Always great stuff from Jim. Jimmy also never hesitates to help out the club with whatever is needed, whether it be ideas or manual labor. He has also volunteered his heavy equipment for landscaping or whatever else is needed. We also would like to thank Doug Burchak. Dougie has always been a solid contributor to the board and his constant hard work is duly noted. Doug has spent many hours at the club helping with just about anything you could imagine and also donates equipment and knowhow whenever he is asked. A rockstar and a member that any club would love to have on their roster! Thank you, brother! I’d like to welcome Phil Potestio and Marc Battilega as our newest Board members. Marc will be taking on the Secretary’s role. Neither of these fellow members need an introduction as all of you know them already and what they have done and still contribute to our wonderful club. Marc has been a former President on 3 separate occasions and Phil has served as our VP and board member in the past. Both of these members know what it takes to run a board and we all look forward to working with them both. Congratulations goes out to Jim Calcagno for winning us 

“Member of the Year”. Jimmy is always there for the club and never refuses to help. He’s a past winner and continues to bring his love and passion for the club year after year. I know when I call Jimmy for assistance, he’s always ready to lend a hand and his experience. The prototype for a terrific member. The member of the year is always a tough vote, because there are always a good 5 or 6 members that could be awarded the title. The members that are constantly there for the club and that are always there to help out in whatever way they can, without asking or hesitation. I wish that we could hand out multiple awards. Great year Jimmy C! At our Christmas Dinner we also introduce our newest 2024 members that were voted in. Our newest members were interested in the club and had shown the desire to become members no matter what I said to them… LOL!  They would not be discouraged or denied! They all understood what it was going to take to become a part of our club and what we all expect from them. They were all determined and happy to become a part of our growing family. I’d like to introduce Steve Leonetti, Tom Allabastro, Bob Bevilacqua, Donna Sunsiri, and Mike Rossi, the grandson of our very 1st President, Aldo Rossi. I welcome you all and look forward to your participation, ideas, and fellowship. Thank you.

The Fun Committee:

This past Sunday, a very jolly and merry group of Paesano’s gathered and made their way to the “Silverton Christmas Market”. There’s nothing like adding a group of very festive Italians to the mix, and you know how we Italians like to celebrate the holidays, especially Christmas time! It was a “FUN” Time from the word GO, or ANDIAMO! We had a cooler full of holiday cheer, a box full of charcuterie and sweets! What’s an Italian party without plenty of food and drink? Even if we had gotten lost in the woods, we could have survived for at least a week on all we brought! Silverton puts on a great Market, with tons of lights, scenes, vendors, food and a pretty nice lodge to sit and warm up in. A terrific time there, was followed by a fun and tasty dinner at “El Charrito ” in Molalla. Like I said, what’s an Italian party without a tremendous amount of food to be had! It was a great way to end a Fun & Fantastic Club Paesano outing. I would really like to thank Jim Siri. Jimmy volunteered one of his big buses and his driver Ricardo. This was so nice! We had such a fantastic time being able to ride on the bus all together. It was fun to be able to eat, drink and speak to everyone all together without having to worry about driving and having 16 different vehicles to park once we got there. We were all together, from start to finish. Such a great time! Thank you so much Jimmy Siri. You made the trip for all of us! Ricardo and his wife were fantastic too. We adopted them into our Italian famiglia for the evening. I can’t wait to do it again next year! I’m sure that we’ll have more outings lined up for this upcoming year along with other events at the club. Stay tuned for upcoming events here on “LaCarota” and in emails I’ll send out to you all. Our Monday Night Social will be taking a small holiday break and will return on Monday, January 8th. If you have any Fun ideas that you would like to see happen, please let me know about it so that I can help you get it going or at least get the word out to our membership.

Superbowl Party:

Our Club Paesano Superbowl Party will be held on Sunday February 11th. Doors open at noon. No time like the present to start planning on being there. This event is open to the public, so please invite all of your family and friends. It’s one of the best watch parties out there. 3 huge High-Def projection screens, sound system, squares and side bets. Our bar prices can’t be beat, and an all you can eat buffet, for the low, low price of $15, which you can just pay at the door. Where else can you go and get all of this for such a low price. Our club is huge, so you’ll have plenty of room to spread out, relax and have an unobstructed view of the game. We also welcome you to bring your own favorite most comfortable chair as long as it has rubber or smooth feet (don’t want to scratch the hardwood floors). What other place in town would allow you to do that, besides your own home, and furthermore, there’s no mess to clean up, but hopefully some of you will stick around to help clean up. It should be quick and easy. Anyway, make your plans to attend now. I’ll put a reminder in next month’s newsletter too.

Carnevale Dance:

Our Carnevale Dance 2024 will be held on Saturday February 17th. Doors open at 5:30pm. Our Charity will be Calabarzon. They were our last year’s Carnevale charity as well. Their charity raises money to take dentists over to the impoverished towns in the Philippines so that they can do dental work for the children of those towns for free. They did so well and raised so much money that they wanted to come back and work with us again. Of course, we said yes! They liked it so much that this year they have already purchased more tickets than last year’s event. They purchased 10 tables for the event. That is Fantastic! Let’s try to buy up the rest of the tables with our families and friends so we can have another “Sellout” like our Halloween dance. If you plan to attend, I would highly recommend purchasing your tickets sooner than later as some of the other tables are starting to sell as well. If you have a favorite table or section that you like to sit in, get it before it’s gone. That happened to me and many others at the Halloween dance. Tickets are on sale now on our website at www.clubpaesano.org .

They’ll make a great Christmas present! The band will be “Crescendo Skye”. As a band they are new to the club, but several of their members have played at our club before. I heard them at an event and thought that they would fit right in with our style of event and the music that we like to hear. In a couple of months, we’ll all have cabin fever and will be excited to get out and have some fun, so get your tickets now and let’s make it a winter celebration!

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Well, the bocce club is at that time of the year where there isn’t much bocce playing happening, but our Board is always working hard. We are currently having monthly meetings to organize and schedule our leagues, tournaments and fundraising events for the 2024 year. We are still in the beginning stages of obtaining information for our future plans to put a roof over our 4 “World Class” courts. You can go to our bocce website to learn about who we are and what’s going on in our bocce world. Our upcoming events, sign up to play, purchase items or just donate funds to our huge “Raise the Roof” project. If you are interested in joining our leagues next year please go on our website or feel free to speak to one of our board members, Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, or myself. We’ll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. I know that a few of you have joined our leagues in the last few years, and are having a fun time learning and playing the game. It’s a great way to get family members and friends out there to play with you on a team. You don’t have to be a Club Paesano member to be a Paesano Bocce Club member, so you can get family and friends that are non-Italian as well. If you don’t have a team to play on, no worries, we will find you a team to play on. We are all one big happy Bocce Family out there, so if you feel like you won’t know anyone, trust me, you will or you will really soon! We’ll even take you out there to check it out and roll a few games if you’ve never played before but are curious about the game. Stay tuned for more bocce news and schedules in upcoming newsletters.

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts & Prayers:

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news of the passing of one of our dear members, Chris Calcagno, our very own Santa Claus. Like me, I’m sure that a lot of you are reacting in the same way. I just saw him and spoke to him or took a family photo with him and told him thanks for always doing it. Chris happily played Santa Claus at our annual Christmas parties for at least the last 35 years. He made our kids so excited and happy to see and be with Santa. He even came back out on stage when he found out that not everyone had taken a picture with him yet. Chris was an easy going, nice guy and I was glad to have had the pleasure of getting to know him throughout these last few years. Chris will be truly missed by his family and his fellow members. Chris is survived by his son Ace, his sister Debra Calcagno Guthrie (our member) and his mother Virginia. I heard from Deb, that his son Ace may want to follow in his dad’s footsteps and play Santa Claus for us next year. I think that Chris would definitely love that! Please pray and keep fellow member Terry Thorud in your thoughts as well. Terry has been going through some health issues lately and could use our support. Please pray for Chris’s family, Terry and all of our members, their families and friends especially in this holiday season. If there is anyone that you would like me to add to this segment, please call or email me with any information.

LaCarota Question:

Well, we had another newcomer to the “Winners Circle” last month. This guy came from out of nowhere to snatch the “Holy Grail” out of the hands of our top 3 who were already getting ready to uncork and pour! Congratulations goes out to Vinny “My Cousin” Curletto! Way to go Vince. You’ve had your name in the running before, but this may have been a first timer for you. I’m glad to see some new names giving the regulars to the “Winner’s Circle” a challenge, once again showing that if you don’t play, you don’t win! Will Vinny start a new streak of his own and get his name up there with the likes of Mario “The Massachusetts Kid” Pompei, Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch or Chris “Superfly” Siri, or will we get a fresh face in there again? Who knows but let’s find out.

Seeing we are a few days away from Christmas, my question has to do with an old Italian Christmas tradition. “The Feast of 7 Fishes”. This meal served on Christmas Eve usually consists of at least seven different seafood dishes. My question is this, “I want you to tell me what the number 7 is believed to represent? That is, it. The winning answers will be entered to win the Coveted bottle of Paesano Vino! Email me your answer before the start of our next members meeting on Wednesday, January 3rd.

Final Thoughts:

For this last newsletter of 2023, I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year for 2024! As I look back on 2023, and our Club, I truly believe that we had a good year and am happy with the direction that we are heading to and the future of our great club. I see a constant interest of new members wanting to join our family. We are consistently bringing in new members year after year which means a good future and shows that we are a relevant Italian Club in the Pacific Northwest. In a time when old clubs are dying out, ours continues to grow and we have people that want to call themselves “Paesano’s” which is a testament to all of us and our hard work to show this area who we are. In my last year as your President, I want to continue to see growth, some changes and different ideas coming in. I will continue to work hard and will continue to “Kick it up another notch!” I have a lot of new ideas and am looking forward to working with our new and returning board. I also look forward to getting our new and older members more involved, and aiming towards the same goals and rewards. I’m excited to see what 2024 holds for us and am looking forward to all of our events! Let’s remember all of our families and friends both near and far. Have a fantastic time with them over these holidays. Eat, drink, be merry, but most important of all, remember to tell them how much you love them! Life is too short, so take advantage while they are still here with you. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and here’s to a fantastic year to come! Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!

Salute,

Rick 

Dec. 2023                                                      LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao Tutti. As always, I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all happy. Healthy and safe! With the change of the weather and the drop in temperature I hope that everyone has made the change from Tee shirts to hoodies and flip flops to sock tops. Has everyone adjusted to the time change yet? I personally dislike the shorter days and colder weather. I’m hoping that they will get rid of Daylight Savings time once and for all. Some of you may like it and that’s great if it works out for you, but this kid loves the sunsets at 9pm. More time to do and play! I can hardly believe that we are already a few days away from Thanksgiving. Where did the time go? I remember November just getting here. Hopefully most of you have purchased all of your TG dinner items and are getting ready for the big day. The air will be filled with the sweet aroma of all the different meals that will be prepared that day. The calorie counter is about to start. LOL!

Christmas Dinner:

On Sunday December 10th at 3pm, Club Paesano will be holding its annual “Members Christmas Party”. It’s an event that we put on for our members to bring in the holiday season and get our CP families together. It’s also the day that we bring on our newly elected Board of Directors, and our newest members that we have elected to be a part of our growing family. Our dinner will be catered in and wine, beer and soft drinks will be provided. After dinner we will burn off some carbs by singing a variety of our favorite Christmas carols including one of our fan favorites “Dominic the Christmas Donkey”. The “12 Days of Christmas” always gets the crowd in a buzz too, although sometimes it gets confusing! LOL! Last but not least, we all wait in anticipation for the arrival of old Saint Nick himself, Santa Claus! He’ll have gifts for the children and it’ll be a great time to get your Christmas photos done. In a week or so, you should be receiving a call inviting you and your family members to dinner. As always, members, their spouses, partners and any children that are 21 yrs. and younger and are still living in the same household are free. Any other family members or guests that you would like to invite will be charged a fee. This is a great party and has always been a favorite. Let’s bring in the Christmas Season the Club Paesano way!  We will see you and the family there.

Fun Committee:

Fun is our name and Fun is what we strive to do. Our Monday Night Socials are alive and kicking! We are there every Monday night unless there is a conflict with an event rental. In that case I will put out an email to let you all know. Food, drink, football and dice, fill the evening but most importantly are the laughs, conversation and comradery that is shared between our members. As I’ve said in the past, it’s a great chance to get to know your fellow CP members in a pretty relaxed environment. A couple of Monday’s ago, we had a mini wine tasting to sample a different variety of wines that we may purchase for our upcoming events. Our members participation and opinions matter to us, so expect to have several more of these in the future. Thank you to our Master Chef, Jim Calcagno for stepping up and making us a great meal for the tasting. Porchetta, bruschetta, charcuterie, loches and many more items were prepared by Jimmy himself. Jim loves to create and take care of his fellow members and we always love and appreciate when he volunteers to cook, which is quite often. Thank you to the rest of you that brought in something to share and for all of the help in the kitchen. It was much appreciated. We want to continue to do more of these types of things, so if you have any fresh ideas, please let me know and I will do whatever I can to make it happen. We are also planning a Christmas outing for our members. Our tentative plan is to get a group of Paesano’s together and head out to Silverton OR. for their annual Christmas Festival. Some of us got together and went there a few years ago. It was a great time with many things to do and very kid friendly. We are currently working on a mode of transportation that can take all or most of us there all together. You will still have the option of just meeting the group there too. If you want to know more about it, please check out their website to see if it would be something that you and your family would like to do. The website is silvertonchristmasmarket.com. We will be finalizing all of our plans shortly. Right now, we are looking at Sunday December 17th. Time to be determined. I will send out an email to let you all know when everything is set. Watch for it.

Bocce News:

I am sad to announce it but our “Fall League” has finally come to a close. It was a very good run of 9 weeks. Thank Goodness Mother Nature cooperated and gave us the opportunity to get a lot of bocce in. It was a fun laid back time which some of us referred to as our “Sunday Morning Church”. We had a lot of new faces and some of our regulars took part as well. It was very nice to see some of our newer members get a chance to play with some of our more experienced members to help them learn the game better. A fun time had by one and all. If you played and want to see the final standings, please go to our Paesano Bocce Club Facebook page. You will get standing pictures and all of our up-to-date news there. You can also visit our bocce website paesanobocceclub.com. We have news, the latest info, pictures, schedules and plenty of apparel, personal pavers, and Family/ Business signs of all sizes that you can order to be placed around our courts and our fencing that will face the Spring Water Trail. It’s a place where hundreds of people a day pass by, whether they are biking, jogging or running. An inexpensive place to advertise a business if you have one. As always, we will always take a monetary donation as well. We’ve made it very easy now. Just hit the “Donate Now” button to be able to donate any amount you’d like. Very cool and simple. Christmas is around the corner so if you are in need of some gifts still, we have some good-looking apparel that you can purchase. A personalized paver would be a fantastic idea too! Some of our Club Paesano members joined forces with our Paesano Bocce club members to play in tournaments out of town this past weekend. One of the tournaments attended by members, Mario Pompei, Ben Meititiro, Antonio Meititiro, and myself was just outside of Dallas Texas at a Horse track. The other tournament attended by Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch and Paul Barasch was held at the Peppermill Casino in Reno Nevada. Although none of our teams fared very well with the heavy competition that was there, we all had a great time and represented Oregon and Paesano Bocce Club well. It was a terrific time and I’m looking forward to getting back there next year. I’m also looking forward to our leagues and tournaments next year. If you are a Club Paesano member that has an interest or would like to play and join a team please go to our website, our Facebook site or speak to one of our board members. Anyone of us will give you all of the info that you will need to get on board. Just let us know. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, or myself.

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts and Prayers:

Our deepest condolences go out to Marc Fazio and his whole family. Three weeks ago, Marc lost his wife and partner Kathy to a long bout with cancer. She fought as hard as she could. The Fazio family has been involved with Club Paesano for a long time. If you have a minute, please let Marc know that you are thinking about him and his family. I’m sure that he would appreciate that. Extra thoughts and prayers go out to Geno Benagni, Chris Siri, my parents and in-laws, and the rest of our Club Paesano Members and family. May God bless us all! If there is anyone that you would like to add to our prayer chain, please let me know by mid-month so I have time to add it into the newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

Congratulations go out to Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch for winning the coveted bottle of vino last month. Jimmy is a constant scrapper that answers about 99% of my questions. I appreciate that and his tenacity trying to take home another bottle to add to his collection. So far he has been the biggest threat to Mario “POM,,,PEI’S” title. Mario is another one that comes out swinging at every question. That’s probably why he is the reigning “Vino Champ of the WORLD”!

So, to give the rest of you a chance to sneak back into this race, I’m going to make this one as simple as can be. This is not a question of right or wrong, just your choice. Seeing that our Thanksgiving Dinner is around the corner, I just want to know this one thing. Turkey or Ham? That is, it. Turkey or ham for Thanksgiving Dinner. It could even be both. Just answer back your favorite protein for TG’ing dinner. ALL answers will be entered to win our “Holy Grail”.

Good Luck!

Club Paesano Board of Directors, New members & Member of the Year:

Like every year end, we have our Board of directors’ elections, we vote in our newest members and we also vote on our “Member of the year” candidates. This year we have a few Board members that are at the end of their terms but may run again along with some new members that were nominated.

Club Paesano Members Click here to print out your Ballot

https://clubpaesano.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-Ballot.jpg

Officers that have one year remaining: Rick Cervi – President / Jim Calcagno – VP / John Benagni – Sergeant at Arms / Geno Benagni – Board / Domenic Guisto – Board / Carlos Barajas – Board.

Officers that are at the end of their term: Mario Pompei – Board / Doug Burchak – Board / Chris Siri – Board / John Kern – Treasurer / Jimmy Siri – Secretary

Nominees for 2024 Board of Directors: 

Mario Pompei – Board 

Doug Burchak – Board

Chris Siri – Board

Phil Potestio – Board

Mirella Rizatti – Board

Marc Battilega – Secretary

New Member Applicants:

Steve Leonetti (Jim Siri)

Donna Sunsiri (Mirella Rizatti)

Bob Bevilacqua (Jim Burch)

Tom Allabastro (Rick Cervi)

Mike Rossi (Nick Rossi)

Member of the Year Candidates:

John Benagni

Kelly Barasch

Carlos Barajas

Jim Calcagno

Doug Burchak

Marc Battilega

Final Thoughts:

As we come upon our Thanksgiving Feasts and our day off to spend with our closest family and friends, let us never forget why we need to be so thankful. Your families, your friends both near and far. Your liberties and your freedoms. Your choices, expressions and most of all your voice. The freedom to express your feelings and be heard. Let us not forget the downtrodden and the people in 3rd world countries that have none of the things that we easily take for granted. The people in war torn and terroristic countries that wonder if they will survive another day and what their futures hold. Our military that keeps us safe and free! Let us just remember to give thanks for every day that we have on this great earth and never take it for granted. Tell your family and loved ones that you love them and don’t go to bed angry. Let us always give thanks for our lives, wellbeing and our Club Paesano family too. God bless and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Salute, 

Rick

November 2023                 LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao, my fellow Club Paesano members. As always. I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe”. As we enter into this Fall season, I’m sure that a lot of you are busy raking leaves and cleaning out downspouts. The Fall season is beautiful in the Pacific NW. Those of us who hunt, have either gone already or are getting ready to make the trip into the woods to get that elusive game to fill our freezers and maybe get a trophy as well. Our mushroom hunters are out there making a catch too. It’s definitely a great time of the year to be outdoors! Next week will bring Halloween and the scenes of little ghosts, goblins, other creatures and characters running up and down our neighborhood streets, with the hopes of filling up their pumpkins with some of their favorite candies and sweets. I always love to see the little ones and the creative costumes that people come up with. Always a fun time, just like our very own Halloween Dance we just had. Anyway, enjoy the season and keep an eye out for the little one’s next week. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Dance: 

Speaking of Halloween, this past Saturday, October 21st, we had our annual Halloween Dance. I have to say, it was FANTASTIC! I feel bad for those of you that had to miss it. We had over 300 guests that partied the night away and filled most of our seats. Our board and our Charity “The Pink Sista’s” put a lot of work into this one and it paid off tremendously! We had the “Design Band” entertaining us, and our “World Famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner to fill everyone up. Deb Hart and her “Pink Sista’s” worked their magic and were able to bring a “Sellout” crowd. They had a raffle and a silent auction going on during the evening to make money for their charity. We were so happy to announce that they made $10,000 that night! I am so proud that we Paesano’s could be a part of that and a reason that they were so successful. In speaking to Deb afterwards, she told me that it was one of the biggest fundraising nights that they have ever had. Every dollar of that goes back to the breast cancer survivors that come to them in various stages of recovery, looking for support, love and comradery. What a wonderful cause and a blessing that Deb and the “Pink Sista’s are for the survivors. We should all be happy for them and proud that we Club Paesano members helped with that! That is always one of the great things that we do that is so beneficial to our community. We are blessed to be able to help out charities throughout the area. I feel it’s a good thing to keep our charity partners local so we can help our people living here in the Gresham and east county area. If you have a favorite local charity that you would like us to help and feel would be a good partner, please let me know so I can reach out to them and offer our assistance to help raise funds with them. Our next dance will be held on Saturday February 17th 2024. Our “Carnevale Dance” with our charity partner “Calabarzon”, and a new entertainment band to the club, “Crescendo Skye”. Please make sure to save the date. I will let you all know when our tickets go on sale.

Fun Committee:

Our Fun Committee is still having a great time with our Monday Night Socials. A Fun night of food, drinks, football, dice and a whole lot of laughs. It’s a great way to get to know your fellow Paesano’s and get out of the house for a couple hours on a Monday night. The comradery is fantastic! On Monday November 6th we plan on doing a wine tasting at the club. We will sample some local and international wines that we will provide. We are always trying different wines and scoring them to see what we may want to use for our events. If you can make it, please bring a dish to share with our wines or maybe your favorite bottle of wine for all of us to share and critique. Your dish can be an appetizer or some kind of charcuterie plate to go along with the wine. Hope to see you there. 

A few of us got out to the Sons & Daughters of Italy’s (Vancouver) Spaghetti feed and scholarship fundraiser. It was a great dinner and they were very happy that we were there to support them. I feel that it’s a good thing for our clubs to lend a hand and to support one another. Club Paesano will be doing the same thing in the near future. It’s in the works. We are also planning on doing a trip to one of the many Christmas events going on throughout the city and county. We’ve gone to Silverton, Canby and Vancouver to enjoy a night out together, and to get in the mood for the Christmas season. I will let you all know when we have a solid plan and give you all of the details. If you have a favorite place that you and your family like to go before Christmas, please feel free to let us know, and maybe we can plan a visit there in December. I will let you all know. Stay tuned!

Bocce News:

Our Paesano Bocce Club is starting to wind down as far as bocce play goes. A lot of us are still playing in our Fall League. We are now coming upon our 8th week of play and will continue to keep playing as long as “Mother Nature” keeps cooperation. It’s been nice to see our members getting into the season, both experienced and newer players. It’s kind of like our Sunday morning mass. Everyone is being competitive, meeting more members and having fun! All leaving with a smile on their faces. We have updated our Bocce website to be able to purchase our apparel now. Signs and pavers can also be purchased online. The items can be shipped right to your door. You can also make a monetary donation by hitting the “Donate Now” button on the screen. We’ve come a long way folks! We are always trying to keep up with technology. I’d like to welcome our two newest board members. Lori Bass (Fiancée of CP member Greg DeMiestri) and Carol Nielson, a longtime Tuesday night player and former Chamber of Commerce President. Some of our Paesano bocce teams are going to tournaments in Dallas, Texas and Reno, Nevada. Congratulations and good luck to all the teams. I will give you an update next month on how everyone fared.

CP Christmas Party:

Save the date! Our annual Christmas party will be held on Sunday December 10th. Doors open at 3pm and the party will go till whenever the last family leaves! As always, a fantastic night to start the Christmas season off in “Paesano Fashion”! This has always been one of my favorite events for our club and members. Socializing, a delicious meal, Christmas carols, new members and a visit from good Old St. Nick himself. It all reminds me of my youth, growing up in my Italian club back home. A great time indeed. All members, their spouses or partners and any child still living in your home 21 years and younger will be complimentary. If you would like to bring other guests, there will be a price set for them to be determined. Marc Battilega will be calling to invite all members and will have prices set for guests as well. You can expect an invite call around Thanksgiving time. Don’t miss it!

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts & Prayers:

Thank you to all of you for your extra prayers for my family. It is much appreciated. Please continue to keep them in your prayers as their medical issues continue. Thank you! I would also like to add some more of our Club Paesano family to our prayer list. Please keep praying for Kathy Fazio and Becky Cereghino as they continue to recover. Let us also pray for the souls of Viki Cerruti (Wife of Richard Cerruti) and Ron Calcagno (Son of Founding member Bernie Calcagno). Both passed away recently. If you know their family members you may want to reach out to them. If you know of anyone in our family or even a friend that is in need of some support or an extra prayer, please let me know and I will add them to our prayer chain. Let us always pray and think about our fellow members, family and friends. Pray for strength, health and Famiglia!

New Board Members:

It is that time of the year again, where we bring in new CP Members and we nominate new board members to fill in for those that have completed their 2-year terms. New members will be invited into our next meeting to be introduced by their sponsors and to explain to us why they would like the honor of becoming a Paesano. New Board members can be “Nominated”, “Self-Nominated”, or existing 2-year board members can be nominated again. Anyone who feels like they can bring something new or help with the current board is welcomed to apply. As a member who has sat on the board for 3 years as a board member and am now in my 3rd year as president, I will tell you that it is hard work. If you want to join the board to add strength, help the club to grow and pick it up another notch then please apply. If you don’t think that you have the time and can’t put your whole heart into it, then please don’t. We need people that want to contribute and be a part of it full time! We are all at different places in our lives. If it’s not today it may be tomorrow, so please keep that in mind. 

LaCarota Question:

Well, well, well. Look who’s back in town! The “Massachusetts Mauler & Comeback Kid” The boy from Rhode Island who dreamt that one day, he would be the Club Paesano’s winningest Vino winner to date! Congratulations goes out to none other than our very own, Mario “POM,,PEI”!

That’s right, Mario never lost his focus and came back from the depths of nowhere to take back his coveted title as “The Biggest Winner” of all time! Even when he wasn’t so fortunate, he kept guessing and putting his answers in there consistently till he finally got to add another bottle to his already loaded Club Paesano Wine collection. Shoot, at this rate we might have to start buying bottles from Mario’s collection for our next event. Loll!

Let’s see who can take down the Champ again. It’s happened before, let’s see if any of you can steal it away from him again. Jimmy Burch, Chris Siri, Domenic, Kelly?? This month’s question has to do with Famous Italians that changed their Italian names to help their celebrity in America. I have four famous Italians that did just that. I will give you their Italian names. I would like for you to give me their new names that they changed them to. 1st: “Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla” (No Kidding, a real name). 2nd: “Angelo Siciliano” 3rd: “Randall Mario Poffo”. 4th: “Carol Penelope Masciarelli. That’s it. Just give me the name that they use now and you will be entered to win this month’s Holy Grail. The coveted bottle of Vino. Good Luck!

Final Thoughts:

I just would like to reflect back on this past Saturday’s event. Our Halloween Dance. I was so happy to see so many people at our club, enjoying the dance and everything that we worked so hard to put together! With the help of a great charity partner, the “Pink Sista’s” we were finally able to get over the hump and get a “Sold Out” event. It wasn’t so much that it was sold out, but that there were so many people there having a fantastic evening and enjoying our club and what we all belong to. Many of us are doing our best to keep the club and our events popular and an event that people want to attend. With some changes and different ideas, we can keep it going. Obviously, we need to change with the times and stay relevant. I feel that we have been doing that, and still can do more. It was nice to see a lot of new faces and to hear so many of our guests say what a terrific venue we have. A couple people even told me how lucky we were to have it all! Every one of you should be proud of that and not forget that we are all a part of it. I would really like to see more of you there at our events though. Remember this is all a part of your club. Something to be very proud of and something for you and your families to enjoy. It’s a place to bring your friends and tell them “I belong to this place”! Have pride in it and know that there are very few places like CP. I really feel that we are fortunate to call this place “Home”. Just like your home, you need to participate and work on it or else it will fall apart. I’m not worried about that because we have the best members around. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, please take advantage of what we have here, it’s very special! 

Love and take care of yourselves. Salute, Rick.

October 2023                                 LaCarota

Please Take Note: October’s Membership meeting has been moved to Wednesday October 11th. Same time.

President’s Message:

Ciao Fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this month’s “LaCarota” finds you all doing well. Happy, healthy and safe. Just like that, our summer is over and fall has arrived. I hope that you all got your fill of summer time weather, and are ready for the cooler and shorter days. The climate has already started to change. We have rain and temperatures in the 60’s. Personally I’m not ready yet! As some of you know, I love our summers, and the heat. I guess growing up in the Canadian winters really made me dislike the cold! Now it’s time to start putting our patio furniture in and picking up the rest of our veggies in the garden. Hopefully October brings us a long and warm “Indian Summer” so we can all enjoy a few more summer-like days before the fall really comes in. We also get to welcome back our fellow members, Jimmy Calcagno and Dedra Ceglie from their trips to the “Mother Country”, Italia. They have both just returned, so hopefully they will share their adventures and pictures of their trips. Ah Italia, hopefully we all get back there someday. I just love it!

Member’s BBQ: 

On Sunday September 10th, we had the chance to get together and enjoy a wonderful lunch in appreciation of all of our members and all that we do. The weather was fantastic, and the food was great. Our lunch was catered from “Kuya’s Islander Cuisine” in Gresham. We had a whole roasted pig, with a side of Hawaiian Mac-Salad and wasabi noodles with chicken and vegetables. Wine, beer and soft drinks were also provided. It was another great chance to have us all get together and socialize. For our newer members, a chance to get to know our older members and partake in the great things that happen at our club. This BBQ is given to all of the members that have and continue to work hard for our club. It’s for those of you that show up, help out and promote our club. Come to meetings and participate in what we do. Not everyone can be at every event and help out all the time, but we hope that this shows a little bit of appreciation, to those of you that do put the time in. On behalf of Club Paesano, I’d like to personally thank each of you! Thank you for all that you continue to do!

Halloween Dance:

Our Halloween Dance will be held on Saturday October 21st, which will be here in no time. Our Musical entertainment will be the “Design Band” who performed for us last year at our same dance, and our Charity partner will once again be the “Pink Sista’s”. Deb Hart who is their founder has been working endlessly to promote and sell tickets to our event. The “Pink Sista’s” will be holding a silent auction and raffle to raise money for such an important cause. They promote “Breast Cancer” awareness, and also provide retreats and activities for the survivors of breast cancer at no charge to them. What a terrific cause! Let’s all show up to help them bring in the revenue that they need to keep their program running. I am very happy to say that at this point, we are 66 seats away from an official “Sellout”! We have come close several times, but haven’t been there yet. I think this time we will do it! If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, I suggest that you do it real soon or else, you may not be able to get in. We will do our best to accommodate, even if it means adding a table or two. This has always been one of our most popular events, and our partnership with Deb Hart and the “Sista’s” has made it that much better! I always love to see all of the creative costumes in the house that night. I’m always so impressed with the thought and hard work that some of our members and guests put into having an original costume. We always have a costume contest to show our appreciation for all of their hard work and effort. As always costumes are an option and not a must, so for those of you that want to just come as you are, we welcome you too! It’s still not too late to purchase, so get on line and buy your tickets to this fun event today! We’ll see you there! 

New Member Applications:

If you would like to sponsor someone you feel would be a great candidate for membership at our wonderful club, the time to get their application is at the end of September. I will make an exception, if you can either get me their application before or at our next meeting. You have an extra week, so email it to me before the meeting if possible. The cutoff date will be at the October meeting. If you don’t get their application in, then they will have to wait till next year. If you are looking to sponsor in a potential member, please make sure that you know them and that they will be the kind of person that will participate and will want to be a part of our club. They will need to work and have fun. They will need to be social and want to be around fellow members and promote our club. If you feel that they would be a good match for us and us for them, please bring them over and have them come to a couple of our events. I would love to speak with them. At November’s meeting you will have the chance to bring your candidate to the meeting and introduce them to us. They will then get a chance to tell us why they would like to become a part of our family and what they will bring to our CP table. Hopefully we will continue to bring on great new members that will want to grow and keep on developing our great club that we all get to be a part of!

The Fun Committee & our Monday Night Social:

Club Paesano and the “Fun Committee” are happy to announce our 1st ever “Christmas Bazaar”, which will be held at the club on Saturday November 25th and Sunday November 26th. It will be a great way to get some of your Christmas shopping done, with over 50 vendors, and a lot of activities. What a great way to bring in the Christmas Season! This will be a family event so bring out the whole famiglia! We’ll have food and beverages for sale along with music, singing and a whole lot more. We are still in the initial planning stages, but I will send out more information as we progress, along with fliers that you can pass out and share on your social media accounts. This will be a great time! The Fun Committee is also in the midst of planning a couple of other things in the near future, including a holiday get together at one of the Christmas events happening around the area. We will keep you posted. Our Monday Night Socials started a few weeks ago and are always a good time. The 1st Monday of the month is “Bring a Friend night”, which means that you can invite a nonmember for the night. Hopefully a potential member. If not, no big deal, if they are a friend of yours, they’re a friend of ours, Maybe, LOL! It’s a great way to hang out and get to know your fellow CP Members. Laughs, food and fun, is what it’s all about! See you there.

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 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: 

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 [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Our Summer bocce leagues came to an end in August, but our “Fall League” is going strong. We are already into our 4th week of play. Everyone who signed up shows up at 9am every Sunday to compete. The difference between our Fall and Summer leagues, is that for Fall league, you are on a different team every week and keep track of your own points for the league’s standings. We form the teams evenly by skill levels and it’s been a great way for our regular players to get to know one another from our different nights. It has also been a fantastic way for our newcomers to learn the game from some of our more skilled players. We all play 3 games each and at the end of the 3 games you get a chance to “Shoot” 4 times for extra points. This is a great way to get our newer players and those who don’t “Shoot” a lot, to learn the technique and to feel more comfortable using it in a game situation. It’s part of the bocce game and a great skill to have. We will continue to play until “Mother Nature” decides that we can’t play anymore. So, unless it is raining, snowing or 30 degrees out, we will continue to play until further notice. Thank you to all of you that have been coming out there and enjoying Sunday mornings with us. We are currently in discussions about moving forward with our roof that we would love to have built over those beautiful courts. The roof over these courts would add so much more to what we are currently doing. It would put Paesano Bocce on the map!  We are in the planning stages and will be speaking with the Gresham city planners in the near future. As always, we are constantly working on raising funds for our roof. We are selling advertising and personal signs (3 different sizes), Personal pavers, and bocce apparel. We are getting these loaded on to our bocce website so you can purchase right from the site and get the items delivered to you, just in time for Christmas. They all would make great gifts. Go to www.paesanobocceclub.com to check out everything bocce. Bocce news, league standings, tournament results, upcoming events, pictures and of course our items that we sell. We have also added a “Donation” button, so if you are feeling very generous and are in the Christmas spirit, we will always accept a monetary donation as well. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Bocce Board of directors, and all of the members that donate their time to help us out. This could not be done without you all! Mario Pompei, Larry Cereghino, Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazzi, Kelly Barasch, Brad Cotton and myself. Here’s to a great season with many more to come!

Portland – Bologna Sister City Association:

The “PBSCA” will be holding their “Sagra” Fundraising Dinner on Sunday October 15th. The doors open at 6:30pm and it will be held at St. Philip Neri Church. Please go to “portland-bologna.org” for more information and for upcoming events and news. You can also speak with our own Phil Potestio about it. You can reach him at [email protected] or 503-236-6364. They are a great organization helping a terrific cause. Let’s show them our CP support!

The Sons & Daughters of Italy’s Vancouver Branch:

The Sons & Daughters of Italy, will be holding their annual “Spaghetti Feed” on Sunday October 15th as well. It will be held at the 40 & 8 Chateau. Tickets are $15 for adults, $8 for children. This is their only fundraising event for their whole year, so if you’d like to help them out and have a nice lunch while you’re at it, please show them your support and attend. You can contact their president Rosann Grzesiowski at [email protected] for more information. Again, let’s show them our great CP support.

Thoughts & Prayers:

Well, I have a special request for your thoughts & prayers for my family. The heart and souls of both of my family’s patriarchs. My Father Romeo who was diagnosed with a “Spinal infection” and is struggling to walk and get around. My Mother Elisabetta (Lisa), who will be going in for shoulder surgery on October 10th. My Father-in-law Jim Sells, who suffered a stroke and broke his tibia 4 weeks ago and my mother-in-law Geraldene Sells, who also fell and hurt her arm and shoulder. I ask for your thoughts and prayers for them and of course wish them all a speedy recovery. It’s tough when it happens to all of them at the same time. My father always has this Italian saying “La vecchiaia e’ brutta”, which means “Old age is ugly”! I hope that it turns around for all of them really soon. I’d also like to keep Jeanie Burch, Becky Cereghino and Anna Nasib in our prayers too, as they recover from their issues as well. If you have anyone you know that is in need of an extra prayer, please contact me and let me know so I can mention them in this segment. As always, thoughts and prayers to all of our Club Paesano members, past, present and future along with their families and friends. Thank you

LaCarota Question:

Well now, we just added another name into the “Winners Circle”. Congratulations to Domenic “Cha Cha” Giusto on his win of the “Holy Grail” last month. Dom came out of nowhere, like a “Stealth Fighter Jet. He swooped in and grabbed the prize. Ok he didn’t exactly swoop in. It took him a couple of flybys (due to absent members) to nail it, but he finally got it! Will “Diamond Dom” repeat or was it just a fluke. Maybe we’ll have another new name to announce at our next meeting. We will have to wait and see. Seeing that October 31st is Halloween, my question will be about one of our favorite Halloween characters, The Witch. As we all know, the wicked witch has always been a favorite character of Halloween and a costume that has been seen about a million times. In North America, our witches usually come out at Halloween, and are synonymous with the event. Well in Italy they also have a famous witch that comes out around at a certain time of the year too. My question is this. Please give me the name of their famous Italian witch. Tell me what time of the year she comes around and exactly what she does to make herself famous. That’s it. Real simple! I really need to start making these questions harder for you all. My cantina is getting low on vino! Alright then, every correct answer will be entered into the drawing for the bottle of Vino, and as always, “You can’t win, if you don’t play!” Good luck.  

Final Thoughts:

 I mentioned earlier about my family’s health situation. It just makes me stop and think how precious life and time are. As young people we never really think about things like that. You are young, strong and invincible, and your parents, the “Rocks and foundations” of your life. They are also strong, well and never seem to grow old. They are always there for you and never ever let you see when they are troubled, hurt or not feeling their best. They were always there for us with support, advise, a laugh and sometimes a scolding but it was always for our best interest. They were always taking care of us, and you could never imagine them getting old and one day having to take care of them. Unfortunately, that time does come for all of us, whether you’re prepared for it or not. Hopefully we can all be there for our families at all times, but especially for our parents when they need it the most. I, like a lot of you, thought that that time was really far away, but it has crept up on my family too. I accept it, but it’s hard. I’m sorry and not meaning to sound sad and depress everyone, but what I am saying is to love and enjoy your parents, family members and friends. You don’t need me to remind you, but I think that every once in a while, we all need to step back from our busy lives and enjoy the love and all the family that God has given us, including your fellow Club Paesano family! Love each other and stay strong! 

Salute & Ciao.

Rick

September 2023                      LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao my fellow Club Paesano Members, as always, I hope that this month’s newsletter finds you all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe”. Summer is flying by and it’s hard to believe that we are looking at our Labor Day holiday, and September. I hope that you are all having fun and enjoying the season. We start a fresh week and before you know it, we’re looking at the weekend! I don’t remember time flying by so fast. Is this what happens with age? Some of our older members, do you have an answer? LoL! We get to welcome some of our members back that have been on vacations or extended vacations, like our own Phil Potestio. He’s been gone since April. Back to the Mother Country again. Can’t wait to hear some of his stories of his stay in Italia. Hopefully we all have some good stories of this past summer and the year, and can share some of what we’ve done with our fellow members. It’s been a busy month for Club Paesano and Paesano Bocce, so here’s to a good rest of the summer!

Concert in the Park:

Our annual Concert in the Park was held on Saturday August 5th. The 1st Saturday of August every year. “5 Guys Named Moe” was our musical entertainment, and had the crowd up and dancing all night. Speaking of crowds, we had around 325 to 350 guests through our gates, and from the people I spoke to, they all had a great time. I would have loved to have seen more people, but we did good. Summer is a busy time for most and there is a lot of competition as far as things to do and different events to go to. Our concept worked out well with an entrance fee and the ability for our guests to purchase food when and as many times as they wanted to. Thank you to Marc Battilega, his family and our members that helped him in the kitchen that night and for those of you that came in on the Wednesday before to help create our famous sauce. A big thanks to all of you that came in that morning to help set up and get things cleaned up and organized for the event. Thank you, Doug Burchack, Kelly Barasch and Mario Pompei,for coming in to set up and staying to tear down. Our brothers John and Geno Benagni for making sure that our WIFI stayed up and running and our POS System stayed onall night. Thanks to all of you that came out to help.  Jim Burch, Carlos Barajas, our VP, Jimmy Calcagno, and Treasurer John Kern. Secretary Jimmy Siri, Mike Potestio, Chris Siri, Chelle Ordway and all of our members that showed up and worked a shift or 2 at a designated position to make sure that everything ran well. We can’t do it without you all! Thank you, and here’s to making next year even better.

Festa Italiana:

On Sunday August 20th, Club Paesano and Cedarville Park once again hosted the “Festa Italiana”. This has been our 3rd consecutive year being their host. As always, a special thanks goes out to Cedarville Park for allowing this event to happen again. Without Club Paesano and Cedarville stepping up these last 3 years, I hate to say it, but I think that the Festa would have not happened. It wasn’t our event, but we should all be proud and happy that we were able to step up and help out our Paesano’s at the Festa. I really feel that it’s so important that as Italians, we don’t let this event, our “Festa Italiana”, go away. If it ever does, I know that it will be tough to revive and bring it back! It’s been 32 years that it’s been a staple for our Italian community here in the Portland /Vancouver area. I hope that we can someday bring it back to its glory days of a multiple day event. Whether it’s still being held at Cedarville Park or if they decide to move it elsewhere, I feel that we Italians need our own party! Like most of the other ethnic communities that have their own celebration, we definitely need to keep ours going. Once again, I thank all of you that came in to help and volunteer at the different positions. I want to give a huge shout out to our own Greg DeMaestri, for stepping into the kitchen and putting out a fabulous menu for our guests to enjoy. It was a couple of weeks in the works, making fresh Bolognese sauce, and everything else that he created. Our guests loved it, and I heard nothing but great things from them. Thank you to all that helped in the kitchen, prepping, cooking, working the food booth and then all of the clean up after the fact. Special thanks to all of you that spent multiple hours in the kitchen helping to make it a success. Lori Bass (Greg’s fiancé) Jimmy Calcagno, Carlos Barajas, Jimmy Burch, Diane Cervi. Geno Benagni for pulling double duties, keeping the internet and POS System going along with frying Arancini (Italian rice balls). A lot of you multitasked to make it a success. All of you that stayed to help clean up later. Chris Siri who stayed behind the bar to make sure that things ran smoothly. I’d also like to thank Chelle Ordway for being our “Volunteer Coordinator” for both our Concert in the Park and the Festa Italiana. Once again, none of this could be done without the help of our members and our volunteers. This is a huge thank you to all of our CP Members and all of the other volunteers that came out to help make it great! THANK YOU!

Italian Farmer’s Picnic:

On Sunday August 6th, Joe Rossi and “Rossi Farms” hosted their 2nd annual Italian Farmers Picnic. Joe brought this event back last year as homage to the Farmers picnic of a time gone by. The Farmers and Ranchers picnic used to be held on the 1st Sunday of August and ran for many years. Unfortunately like a lot of other traditions, it went away. Joe graciously picked it back up last year, and has held it at his own house. All Italians were invited, especially Paesano’s and Joe hosted everything for us. What a fantastic host!! He had an array of food once again prepared by our own Greg DeMaestri. The Peroni beer and Italian wine was flowing along with a live musical group for our listening and dancing pleasure. What a fantastic event and one that I hope never goes away again. Thank you once again Joe Rossi for being such a gracious host and for reviving this very special Italian event. See you all next year!

Members Appreciation BBQ:

This year’s Members Appreciation BBQ, will be held on Sunday September 10th, starting at noon. We have a special menu this year. It will be a roasted rotisserie pig that we are getting from Kuya’s Islander Cafe in Gresham. Fred Asa the owner will be preparing it and bringing it in for our lunch. I’ve had it from his restaurant before and trust me, you’ll be in for a treat! We’ll also have Hawaiian Mac with a veggie side. I’m sure that none of you will walk away hungry. I’d like to have a head count so that we know how much of our side dishes to order so please send me an “RSVP” with how many of you will be coming. As always, this appreciation dinner is for members and their spouse, partner or a friend only. It’s not for the whole family. We will allow you to bring in your own wine as well if you would like. If the weather is nice, we will hold it outside under the Pavilion, if not it will be inside the lodge. Please let me know if you plan on being there. Email, call or text me at [email protected] or 503-891-7374

Monday Night Social:

Our Monday Night Social will be making its return on Monday September 11th. The Monday after Labor Day. As always, we will have food, drink, football, Left, Right, Center and a whole lot of laughs! If you haven’t been to one yet or it’s been a while since you’ve been there, make a plan on checking it out. We always have fun and you never know what gourmet meal you will be enjoying that night. All of our participants take a turn at preparing or bringing in a dinner to feed the group. Trust me, we’ve all been treated to some fantastic dinners. Sometimes it’s a collaboration of a couple different members combining their talents to serve us a masterpiece of culinary magic! How does that sound? LoL! This isn’t a mandatory night that anyone has to attend, but it’s voluntary and a great chance for you to get to know and spend time with your fellow CP members. You’ll be surprised what you’ll get to know. A lot of good history of the club, but more important, the chance to really spend time and converse with some of your fellow friends. We welcome everyone and nothing is set in stone, we can do whatever we want. Mondays are for members only, but we welcome you to bring a nonmember in on every 1st Monday of the month. This includes spouses, partners and friends, hopefully potential new members too. Hope to see you there! 

New Members Applications:

It’s that time of the year again. If you have a potential candidate that is interested in becoming a member and that you feel would be a good fit for CP and us for them, then please have them fill out a membership application and turn it in to me by the end of September. That is the cut off day, but I may make an exception depending on the circumstances. I already have 3 turned in. 2 of them were in May. These people are serious and want to be a part of this special place. I’ve had the chance to speak to each of them and made it clear what we expect from them to be a CP Member. They have all agreed. We really want to make sure that our potential members are quality people who want to participate and want to really be a part of this. We don’t need any more members that are “Part time” members. We want members who love the club and want to be here. We want members who will participate and promote the club wanting to take it to that next level. We want members that will work hard, but will also take the time to come out and have fun with us too. Out of club events, ideas and new ways of thinking are more than welcomed. These are the type of people that we need and I would love to have as members. If you have someone in mind, that’s great, but please take all of these characteristics into account, and please make sure that they have a majority of them. We have plenty of room to grow and if we start to get near the 100-member mark, then maybe we can consider getting that bylaw changed to accommodate more members, but we need to get there 1st. Get your apps in soon. Thanks

Members’ Dues & Payments:

“Same as last month”

Cedarville Lodge & Park Shares:

“Same as last month”

Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:

“Same as last month”

Halloween Dance:

Saturday October 21st will be the night of our popular “Halloween Dance”. No time like the present to start planning on what costume to wear, and how many people you will be inviting. Our Charity Partner will be the “Pink Sista’s” and our musical entertainment will be the “Design Band”. I’ll have more info on next month’s newsletter, but why not start to plan?

Paesano Bocce Club:

Well, it’s hard to believe, but our 4 nights of bocce leagues have come to an end, with our championship Sunday that took place on Sunday August 13th. It was really 4 nights of enjoyment, challenge, improvement, winners, losers, and a whole lot of fun! The most important thing was that everyone had fun but also learned the skill of bocce. From our most skilled night on Mondays to our “Rookie” night on Thursday, it was on! Our competitors were for the most part, in it to win it! They had a great time, but took the game seriously when they needed to. It was fantastic to see the improvement of everyone’s game, even some of our most challenged players came through and added skill to their game. So many players are coming back next year, with a lot of them already signed up and going to play in our Fall league coming up on Sunday morning, September 10th. Sign up at 9 am. August was a busy month for our bocce club. We had our annual “Gresham Ford” sponsored “Mixed Doubles” Tournament, which I’m very happy to say that my partner Stephanie Kyle (Domenic Giusto’s Fiancé) and I took 1st. It was the 2nd time in two years! We had our Championship Sunday for all 4 league nights. Our annual” Festa Tournament” was held last Sunday the 20th and we are holding our “Singles” Championship for both Men and Women this coming Sunday the 27th. As I said, a busy month. On Sunday September 10th at 9am we will start our “Fall Season”. It will be played as an “Il Sacco” format which means that you will be randomly selected to teams which will include all skill levels. Every week you will be on a different team, but your points will be accumulated on your wins for that week. We will also give you a chance to learn or hone your shooting skills. At the end of your 3 games played (each to 12) you will get the opportunity to shoot or “Hard Lag”, 4 times to accumulate even more points for your day’s tally. The cost will be $25 for the league and we will play until the weather tells us that we can’t anymore. Too wet or too cold. If you are interested in coming out to play and want to join, please contact our Competition Chair, Brad Cotton at [email protected] by Friday September 8th. We now have an official Paesano Bocce Club Facebook page that you can go on and join to check out what’s happening in our bocce world. Upcoming and past events. Pictures, videos of games, etc. It’s really nice. Go on to join and check it out. Of course, we have our website too where you can go to check out standings, league and tournament outcomes, and you can sign up and pay your dues as well. We also have pavers, apparel and advertising signs for sale too. You can also make monetary donations to our “Cover the Courts” campaign to raise money to put a roof over our courts. Anything will help. Check it out. www.paesanobocceclub.com. Thank you to our Bocce Board of Directors for all of your hard work this season and for making it a complete success! President: Mario Pompei / Treasurer: Rick Cervi / Competition Chair: Brad Cotton & Kelly Barasch / Officers: Doug Burchak & Dino Gavazza. Special thanks to “IL Capitano” Larry Cereghino for all of your back breaking work around the courts especially laying all of our pavers. Thank you all for all that you do!! We will continue to have meetings on the off season and throughout the winter. If you would like to become involved, please contact any of us for info or questions. The more ideas and help, the better. Here’s to some more BOCCE!

Thoughts & Prayers:

Our thoughts and prayers this month go out to Becky Cereghino who just had a successful knee replacement surgery and is now at home recovering. Please keep her recovery in your prayers and reach out to give her a call to let her know that you are thinking of her. I know that most of you know Becky. Also let’s give a prayer to Debbie Calcagno, Jimmy’s wife, who is having some hip issues and just went in for a shot of cortisone to help ease the pain. Many of you know Deb as well so I’m sure that she would love to hear from you too. If you have anyone else that needs an extra prayer, please let me know and I will mention them in this segment. Of course, many thoughts and prayers to all of our members and their families, past present and future.

La Carota Question:

Once again, Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch was the winner of last month’s bottle of Vino. Jimmy has been a constant in answering the questions. His tenaciousness and his “Never give up” attitude have put him on the map for winning the “Holy Grail”. I really think that he is catching up to the all-time winner, Mario “The Punisher” Pompei, that’s “Pom-pei”! I’ll have to look at my records to see how close Jimmy is getting. It’s got to be close! Jimmy is just proof that, “you can’t win if you don’t play”! Way to go J.B.

Seeing we just got done with the 32nd Festa Italiana Portland, I’m going to stick with the Festa theme. This month’s question is, “What major Italian Festival is held in September?” This should be another easy one as this Festival is also huge in the Italian communities of the United States too. All winning answers will be entered to win the coveted bottle of Vino. Let’s see if anyone can knock the “Tenacious” one off of his winning ways!

Final Thoughts:

I want to dedicate my “Final Thoughts” segment to two very special people who have been instrumental and very involved with all things “Italian” in the Portland area. These two have been involved with the Festa Italiana for so many years helping them to fundraise and have been on their committee, to keep the wheels from falling off of said bus. 2 years ago, they joined our club and became members. They’ve helped us and have done a lot of promotion for us too. I got to know them a lot better since they became members and consider them both friends and friends to many of you. These two friends are Anna Salanti and Frank Cook. Anna and Frank exemplified being part of our Italian community and did whatever they could to try to help and make it better for all of us. They really enjoyed our Italian family and wanted to be around it. When they asked to join CP, I was more than happy and honored to have them come on board and join our Famiglia. It’s been great having them with us as they are great people. Unfortunately for us, Anna and Frank have decided to move out of Oregon and will call Texas their new home. They will be moving in the next week. If you didn’t know and you’d like to wish them well, I’m sure that they would love to hear from you. I know that with the days of social media and all, it’s easier to stay connected, but it’s never the same as being in person. Anna and Frank, I want to wish you all the best in your new home and state, and want to thank you for all that you both did for the Italian community in our area. You will truly be missed, but you will always have a home with us here and our CP Family. I hope that you will come to visit us when you come back to Portland and please don’t forget about us. We will always be here for you both. Hopefully I’ll get to see you in November!  Lots of love to you both and all the best from your Famigla!

Ciao & Ti Salute!

Rick & Our CP Famiglia

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.

July 2023                            LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Ciao, my fellow CP Members. As always, I hope that you are all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe!” Well, we finally made the leap from Spring to Summer and it’s looking like we are going to have a good one this year. As much as I wanted to see Summer get here, it seems to me like this year is just flying by! We are at the end of June, looking at July. They say that time flies when you are having fun and that’s great, but if “Father Time” would like to slow it down a little, I would be good with that too! I hope that you all are getting out and enjoying the weather and are getting to do things. I know that it’s graduation season, and many of us are either hosting a party or being invited to one. Vacation season is here too. Whether you are going away, or having a “Stay-cation”, please enjoy! 

La Polenta Dinner:

In lieu of our June’s regular Membership meeting, we celebrated a great “Italian” tradition. We invited all Italian clubs, and Italians in the area to our “La Polenta Dinner”. This has become one of our annual events and traditions. It’s getting bigger and better every year. How nice is it to get together with your fellow members and others to enjoy one of the most traditional Italian dinners there is. We got to mingle and socialize, drink some nice wine, and eat! All of the things that we all love to do! The polenta was fantastic and the sauce was exceptional. Thanks to Marc Battilega for making the sauce, and to everyone that helped him in the kitchen to put the meal together. I also want to thank all of you that came early to help set up and stay later to tear down. We had members from the “IBC”,” The Sons & Daughters of Italy” and the “Portland Amici Club” come to celebrate with us. We also had some Italians who were not affiliated with any clubs show up too. Maybe potential CP Members? Claude Bonafilio from the “IBC”, presented 3 of their scholarships to 3 very fortunate students. My daughter, Adriana, was fortunate enough to receive one of them! It’s a great thing that they do and I’m hoping that Club Paesano will follow suit and set up our own to offer to our CP Scholars in the near future. All in all, a great night and a tradition that we will enjoy for a long time to come.

Concert in the Park:

On Saturday, August 5th, we will be having our annual Concert in the Park. It will be held outside in our beautiful “Fred Siri” Amphitheater. It will be in our park under our huge cedar trees. The gates will open at 4pm and our musical entertainment for the night will be “5 Guys Named Moe”.

They have played for us on numerous occasions and performed at last year’s concert. They’re an 11-piece band that has everyone up and dancing! Like last year, we will have an entrance fee and food will be sold separately. Tickets will be $10 for general seating which is lawn seating (bring your own chair) or $15 for a chair at a table, and are now available to purchase on our website at www.clubpaesano.org. We will offer a variety of food for purchase. Please invite everyone and anyone you can. This is a family friendly event so children are welcome. Due to the fact that it’s held outdoors and is our biggest event, we will need volunteers. This is Club Paesano’s only event that we ask our members to volunteer at, so if you are coming, please be able to donate an hour or 2 for a shift. We will need volunteers to come in early that morning to help set up tables and chairs outside. We will need help in the kitchen, and at the bar. Ticket takers, security, raffle sellers etc. I will have a volunteer signup sheet out, at our next meeting, so you can pick your shift and time. I know that we all want to enjoy the party and have fun with guests and fellow members, so if we get enough volunteers, we can spread the work out evenly and you’ll have fun too. Again, let’s get out there and promote this event. Tell everyone, pass fliers out and advertise on your social media. It’s a big event and it costs us a lot of money to put on, so we need guests. Let’s try to make the biggest Concert yet! We’ll see you there!

Fun Committee:

Our last Fun Committee event at “Gather Arts” was great! Getting out with fellow Paesano’s is always fun, so we are looking to do it again! For the last 2 summers, we have gone out to have dinner together at a specific restaurant. 2 yrs. ago it was “Spinella’s” Italian restaurant and last year it was “Kuya’s Islander Cafe”. They both provided us with our own menu and allowed us to bring in several people. It was a win, win for both CP Members and their businesses. We had a chance to help out these restaurants after the pandemic and we also had a chance to get together for a night away from the club to have some fun. We would love to do that again this summer, so if you know of a restaurant owner or a place that you frequent and would like to have us gather there, let me know so that we can set something up. It’s always nice to help the community and people that we know. We are always looking for something to do, so if you have any suggestions or ideas let’s try to make it happen. Get all the information you can and run with it. It doesn’t have to be a restaurant gathering, it could be anything. It’s all about the “FUN!”

Chamber of Commerce Event:

On Wednesday July 12th at 5pm, Club Paesano will be hosting the “Unofficial Happy Hour” brought to you by Club Paesano and the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. This event is open to all CP Members, Chamber members and the public. We will have the Happy hour outside near our beautiful Cantina area and park under the shade of our great cedar trees. What a beautiful setting, and a great way to showcase CP, and Cedarville Lodge & Park. Hopefully the lodge can get some future bookings out of it. CP will provide a “No Host” bar and some food to purchase. Our food offerings haven’t been chosen yet. If you are free that night, or don’t feel like cooking please come. Enjoy a night out and meet some of our Chamber members as well. All are welcome, so bring your family and friends. Let’s show the Chamber and the East County how Club Paesano represents, and let’s show off our beautiful venue and what we have to offer! Something to be proud of for sure!

Paesano Bocce Club:

Paesano Bocce is alive and doing well in Gresham and our leagues have started. We are happy to be running 4 league nights once again this year. Monday through Thursday. Monday nights being for the more advanced, all the way to Thursday being our “Rookie or Beginners” night. A lot of our regulars have returned, but we also have a crop of new talent that have never played at our club before. We have some from the public and some being our very own Club Paesano Members. I’m there all 4 nights, and have witnessed some very good bocce being played. Even our newest players have been doing well. The most important thing that I see the most, is that our players are having fun and being competitive. They are getting into the game and want to learn it, but at the same time I see them laughing, talking and smiling. The camaraderie is fantastic! That is the most important thing. Come out and enjoy! We had a great “Meet & Greet” tourney, back in May and had a great turn out. Bocce is definitely a sport that is on the move and taking off in North America. The beauty of this sport is that anyone can play. Young and old, male or female, athletic or not. Everyone has a chance to be competitive. With some practice and concentration, anyone has a chance to be a very good player. Please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com for all the information, instructional videos, sign up forms for our leagues and our upcoming tournaments too. I recommend checking it out. You can also purchase items to help us raise funding for our “Raise the Roof” project. As most of you know, last year we finished construction of our 4 “World Class” bocce courts. Now we would like to build a roof to cover them. This would allow us to play all year long and help to maintain the integrity of the courts. We put a lot of money into them, so it would be nice to be able to preserve them for many years to come. The roof would also make for some good, “Big Money” tournaments, attracting very good players from around the country. This would not only benefit our bocce club but Club Paesano and Cedarville Park as well. It would also bring money into the Gresham and East County area as well. If you are interested in playing, or being involved in our club, please contact one of our Board members. Mario Pompei – President / Myself- Treasurer / Dino Gavazza, Doug Burchak and Kelly Barash – Board of directors. Anyone of us will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. As always, we have items to sell. Personal pavers, advertising and personal signs of different sizes that will hang on our fence that runs along the Spring Water trail, (BTW, Hundreds of people a day would see them), t- shirts, hoodies and hats. Of course, we will always be willing to accept monetary donations too. If you own a company or work for one that would be willing to donate to a tournament or purchase an advertising sign, please let one of us know. Our next tournament will be held July 8th & 9th. The 8th will be our annual Oregon vs Washington Ryder Cup tourney for bragging rights and the coveted trophy. The 9th will be our annual Aldo Rossi tournament. We are still accepting teams for the Aldo Rossi Tourney, so if you would like to sign a team up, you still have a little time. Go to our website and register your team to play. You can also contact our “Competition Chairperson” Brad Cotton at [email protected]. There will be cash prizes and medals going out to the top 3 teams. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate as it’s first come first served and once, we get the needed number of teams we will no longer accept any more. Even if you are not playing, you can still come out to watch and enjoy some great competitive bocce for the day!

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!”

Thoughts & Prayers:

Please keep Terry Thorud in your thoughts and prayers. He’s been a long-time member and informed me of the passing of his wife Chris. Chris passed away on May 13th. He would like to invite us all to her “Celebration of Life” which will be held on Saturday July 1st between 1:30pm and 4:30pm at the Gresham Elks which is located at 3330 N.E. Division St. in Gresham. Please help support both Terry and his family if you can. Let us also keep our own Kelly Barasch in our prayers. Kelly went through a major back surgery about 3 weeks ago which was a success. She is currently recovering and is gaining positive momentum. Kelly is a warrior and a trooper, so this will only help her to get stronger and to have a better well-being without all of the pain that she has experienced in the past. We miss you Kelly and can’t wait to see your smiling face and brilliant personality back at the club and on our bocce courts! Thoughts and prayers to all of our Club Paesano members, past, present and future!! If you have anyone that you would like to add to our “Thoughts & Prayers” list, please let me know and I will make sure that they are included in our newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

Due to last month’s meeting being our La Polenta dinner, June’s question winner will be selected at July’s meeting next week. We will see if we can get a new winner or will Chris Siri continue his new found domination over the coveted bottles of wine. I think that he’s stocking his wine cellar at home with all of these wins. Can the “Comeback Kid” Mario Pompei sneak in to regain his dominance, or will we have a new winner. Will we have a fresh face, an up and comer, someone who can get their name in there with the elites of this game? We will wait and see. You can’t be in the “Winners Circle” if you don’t play, so let’s see how many of you will be in the running for July’s “Holy Grail”. This month’s question is another easy one. My question is this. What annual Club Paesano Event was canceled and replaced by the “Concert in the Park”? Simple. I should receive tons of correct answers for this one! As always, you can’t win if you don’t play, so email me with your answers before our next meeting. Good Luck!

Club Paesano Dues: 

June is fast approaching, and our CP Membership dues need to be paid by the end of June. Try to stay ahead of the game, and if you can, send a check, or pay John Kern, the next time that you see him. He takes cash and credit cards. Please don’t make him chase you. He’s a busy man, and has a lot of other things to take care of. Our annual dues are still $100.

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. 

Final Thoughts:

As we move into the summer season, we have also moved into “Graduation Season”. Many of us have celebrated one for a child or been invited to relatives or friends’ graduation. They are fun and exciting not only for the graduates themselves but for the proud parents, grandparents, relatives and friends. It’s a look at our new leaders, CEO’s, government powers to be, and our future workforce. The future is in their hands as a lot of us get ready for the next chapter of our lives, “Retirement!” As we have raised them and nurtured them to become the best that they can be, I can only imagine that the best is yet to come. The future is bright and we will depend on them to take over the reins and lead us into the next dimension of our lives. We will continue to support and give guidance as most of our parents did with us, but soon they will be leaving the nest and carving out their own destinies and careers. I’d like to take this segment of the newsletter to recognize some of our families who have graduated this year and what their goals are for the near future. I apologize if I missed anyone, but these are the Kiddo’s that I know about. Bryce Vandervort. Grandson of Mario & Jayne Pompei. Bryce just graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Marcom and a minor in business. Bryce is planning on heading down to Ashland to study at the Shakespeare festival. Perhaps acting or production is in his future. Skylar Benagni, daughter of John & Monica Benagni. Skylar just graduated from Tigard High school and plans on going to PSU & PCC to acquire a business degree. Skylar would love to own her very own Event planning business in the future.

 Adriana Cervi, Proud Mom, Diane Cervi and extra proud Daddy, ME! I’m very happy to say that my “Babes” Adriana just graduated Central Catholic with straight A’s and made the “Honor Roll”. Adriana is planning on starting at PCC and would like to start a career in multi-Media. We are all proud parents, relatives and friends of all of our graduates. Here’s to their futures and here’s to them! Let us all give them the strength and support that they need. Hopefully most of them will become Club Paesano members some day and help to keep us going well into the future and beyond. Te Salute!

Rick.