July 2024                                                      La Carota

President’s Message;

Hello my fellow Club Paesano members. As always, I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all, healthy, happy and safe! I hope you are all doing great and that many good things have been happening for you all. We finally got to our 1st day of summer last week. Our days are longer and warmer and we are already at the end of June. Where has the time gone? I looked at the calendar and realized that I needed to get working on this newsletter! Didn’t we just have our La Polenta dinner and our 1st Scholarship? I know that I couldn’t wait for summer to get here, but man, that went by fast! Has anyone been doing anything exciting lately? Are you planning any vacations or major summer projects? Cedarville lodge is buzzing with weekend rentals and weekly parties. Bocce is well underway and jam packed from Monday to Thursday. The club has been a popular spot to be. I know because I spend at least 3 to 4 nights a week there. If you have a weeknight free, come on over and enjoy a bocce game or a walk in our beautiful park. Everything is green, lush and it’s a great place to be on a summer day. Come out and enjoy what your club has to offer you.

La Polenta & Scholarship Dinner:

Our last meeting in June was actually our La Polenta Dinner and 1st Annual Scholarship Dinner. I am happy to say it all went very well and we will continue to do it every year! The dinner was fantastic as usual and the company was great too. Special thanks to Marc Battilega for running the kitchen and cooking all of the polenta. Thank you to Donna Howard, Dino Gavazza and everyone else who helped in the kitchen and helped to serve the food. Also, special thanks to all of you that made a roast and brought it so we could put it in our sauce. We had so much, that it was our meatiest sauce ever! So good! It was so nice to once again see all of our members and guests having a good time together. There were a lot of good conversations and laughs going on throughout the evening. We also gave away our 1st ever Scholarships to 3 very worthwhile candidates. We had 6 great candidates apply, but unfortunately, we only had enough money to make 3 scholarships. Maybe next year we can raise more money so that we can give away a bit more! Our deserving candidates that were selected by our committee were, Bronwyn Allabastro, (Granddaughter of Member Tom Allabastro). Morgan Calcagno, (Cousin of Member Jim Calcagno), and Adriana Cervi (My lovely Daughter). It was a tough decision, but our committee picked accordingly. I’d like to thank the committee again. Dino Gavazza, Donna Howard, Anna & Reza Nassib, Vince and Kristy Curletto, and all the way from Italy, Phil Potestio. Thank you for all of your hard work and here’s to making next year even better! If you would like to be on the committee, please contact me. We can always use some more help for everything we need to get accomplished for next year.

Concert in the Park;

This year’s Concert in the Park will be held on Saturday August 10th. Our gates will open at 4pm, and the party will go on till the last person leaves the park! Our band will be the “Design Band” and our charity partner will be “Calabarzon”. As you all know this is our outdoor event which will be held in our beautiful park. Surrounded by trees, our “Fred Siri” amphitheater will be looking great! This event is “Kid” friendly, so bring your whole family. No need to stay home because you can’t find a babysitter! Bring your children’s friends too, so they can all have fun. We use the whole park, so there will be plenty of room for them to run around and have a great time. Our ticket prices are $25 – table seating, $20 for lawn seating (bring your own low back chair or blanket) and will both include our famous Spaghetti & meatball dinner. Children under 6 yrs. of age will be free. There may be other food to purchase and as always, we will offer a “No host” bar for all of your favorite libations. The Concert is just about 6 weeks away. Get your tickets now, so you don’t miss out on getting your favorite spot. Being an outdoor event, we will have plenty of room for guests, so please invite as many people as you can! Family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and even people you’ve just met. We’re a big family here, so let’s make it an even bigger party. The band will have you out dancing in the park till 10pm, then you can come over to the “Cantina” for our after party, where you can hang out with your favorite beverage and fellow guests. Again, my fellow CP Members, let’s make this a huge event and one that will have them talking about for a long time. Let’s make it a party that our guests will want to come back to, year after year! Tell your families and friends and be sure to post and share to your social media accounts. Do your best to spread the word. With all of your help, this event will be our best ever!

Paesano Bocce Club;

Our Bocce leagues kicked off the 1st week of June and have been rolling along smoothly ever since. We have 4 full nights of bocce and could have potentially had a 5th night. The popularity of this sport has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years and it shows. We have so many new faces out there. They are learning the sport, having a blast, and are starting to show a competitive side too. Everyone is starting to learn the rules and the strategy of the game and it’s really starting to show. We had our 1st official tournament of the season on Sunday June 23rd. It was our Men’s & Women’s Doubles tournament. There were 12 men’s teams and 8 women’s teams participating. A great day of bocce was had by one and all! There were many good games that were very close and highly competitive. Our participants definitely came to play and win! Congratulations goes out to our 1st place winners. On the men’s side, it was our very own Dino Gavazza and Paul Barasch and on the women’s side it was our very own Kelly Barasch and Skylar Benagni (daughter of John Benagni). The Barasch family had it going on that day. Way to go Father & Daughter!  I’d also like to give a huge shout out to our new sponsor, Marathon Printing! Anthony Foster and his crew really took care of us. They donated funds for our tourney and also brought refreshments and gifts to give away to our group. Anthony is a very nice guy, and his company does some great work. If you or your company is in need of any kind of advertising, talk to Anthony. They do signs, banners, sandwich boards, fliers, swag, etc. Tell him that you are a Club Paesano or bocce member and receive an automatic 10% off. Anthony is more than willing to negotiate as well. Once again, a huge thank you to Anthony Foster & Marathon Printing! As I said in our last newsletter, Paesano Bocce has now become a 501-C3, non-profit. We can now accept donations and are able to give you an official receipt for your taxes. Not only can you donate money, but materials and labor too. As you know, our next big project is to cover our courts with a roof. That will not only extend our bocce season making it an all-year activity, like other states have, but it will put us on the “Bocce Map”, for tournaments. Anything will help us out. For any information about bocce, please visit our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com . You’ll find out anything you need to know about our leagues, standings, upcoming bocce tournaments, purchase an array of things, and you can also hit the donate button too. We’ve come a long way, but we’re not quite there yet. Any help will be appreciated! I am very proud of our board of directors and all the hard work that we have put in to make this a reality! Thank you to all of our members too. Without you we couldn’t have accomplished all of this! 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: 

Need a good reason to purchase Cedarville Shares? Get Astronomical savings on Park Rentals and save Thousands!

If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at [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.

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. 

Thoughts and Prayers;

Please give some extra love and prayers to our own Doug Burchak who lost his mother Marilyn last month. Marilyn is survived by her husband Jay, and 3 sons, Doug, Mike and Craig. Thoughts and prayers also to Lynda DeMaestri, mother to our own Greg DeMaestri. Lynda has been dealing with several health issues and needs our support. Please give Greg some support and pray for his mother’s wellbeing. Our thoughts are also with Debbie Calcagno, spouse of our V.P. Jimmy Calcagno. Deb is going in for a hip replacement. Our thoughts and prayers are with you both and here is to a speedy recovery Deb! If you know of any CP Member or family that is in need of an extra prayer and support. Please let me know, and I will add them to this section.

La Carota Question;

Well, my last question had to do with our La Polenta dinner and polenta in general. We didn’t have a lot of answers, but for the few of you that did answer, we will be drawing a winner at our next Member’s meeting. Most of our regulars, including the Wine King, Mario, didn’t answer. Perhaps Mario is trying to leave the door open for the rest of you to catch up with him! Seeing that next month, July, starts off with 2 major holidays; July 1st, being Canada’s Independence Day (and John Benagni’s Birthday) plus July 4th being our Independence Day, my question is this. What day is Italy’s Independence Day? There you have it. Let’s see who our next winner will be. All correct answers emailed to me before the next meeting, will be entered to win the “Coveted” bottle of vino! Buona fortuna!

Final Thoughts;

Here’s to all of our Club Paesano members, both past and present. Here’s to you and all of your hard work, making this great club what it is today! It’s so great that our ancestors came to this country, got together and made a home for themselves and their families to all gather in. Not only did they think of their present situation, but they also thought about our future as Italians coming to this country, this state and this city. I’d like to thank all of the Italians that came before us and put out the hard work, knocked down the walls and raised up such a great place for all of us to enjoy now! Let us do our part as current and future members to keep this place alive and well. Let’s keep it a place to call home, a place for us to meet and enjoy as our members before us did. Take advantage of your club, Club Paesano, and all it has to offer! Thank you to all of you that keep this motor running and that keep us coming back for more! Enjoy one another and enjoy this summer. Have fun and be careful out there.

Salute,

Rick

June 2024                                           LaCarota

President’s message:

Ciao e benvenuto a tutti i soci del nostro Club Paesano! As always, I hope that this edition of “LaCarota” finds you all healthy, happy and safe! I hope that you are all out and enjoying this fantastic weather. Some sun, heat, a cool down and then some rain. This is our Springtime in the Pacific Northwest. 60 degrees to 80 in the matter of days. I guess that is what makes the PNW a special place. Personally, I will tell you that it’s a lot better than freezing cold and snow! I got to travel back home, to visit my folks and the rest of my family. I am very happy to report that everyone and everything is great back there. My famiglia is doing great. Mom, Dad and siblings are feeling and looking fantastic. Must be that good Italian bloodline! I was fortunate enough to visit my old Italian club, which was having its annual Member’s Banquet. Many of my family and friends are still members. There were 1200 members and guests in attendance. It was fantastic to see!         I ran into family relatives and friends that I haven’t seen in quite a few years. It was like I never left! It was proof that our Italian Heritage is alive and well, no matter where you go in North America and beyond. It was a fantastic trip and I’m so glad that I finally got back home, where I grew up, and got to experience all of its goodness, once again! It was a terrific trip down memory lane and as I said, a good feeling that our Italian heritage in North America is doing just fine! If any of you would like to check out the club that I had the privilege of being a member of for a long time, go to www.ciociaroclub.com I pretty much grew up there. Established in 1975. The same year that Club Paesano purchased the building that we now know as Cedarville Lodge & Park.

Spring Dance:

On Saturday May 11th, we had our Spring Dance. The food was fantastic as usual. Of course, we had a good band that played and got our guests out on the dance floor with some energy. Our Charity was small but did the best they could to bring in guests and raise some money for their cause. The problem that we had unfortunately, was the lack of guests, about 115 total. That my friends was a huge disappointment especially after our Halloween and Carnevale dances. As a matter of fact, this was our 1st event in a long, long time that we actually lost money. I realize that it wasn’t the perfect weekend to have it, but I don’t think that it should have stopped most of our members from attending! The very thing that we were lacking, was our members and their guests. The board and I did everything that we could to promote and sell tickets. I’m not sure of what else we could have done. As I have said over and over, whether it be at our meetings or on this newsletter, we really need our active members to step up, attend and get the word out. Sell tickets and bring guests! That is all I can say. I’m hoping that this is our “Mulligan” for the year and that our next event, “The Concert in the Park” on Saturday August 10th, will be a huge success. Do what you can to make our Concert something that folks will want to attend every year!

Polenta Dinner & 1st CP Scholarship Presentation:

On Wednesday June 5th, in lieu of our regular Club Paesano Membership meeting, we will be hosting our “All Italian” Polenta Dinner and our very 1st CP Scholarship presentation. This is an event that is open to all Italians. Whether you belong to another Italian club or are just of Italian heritage looking for a fantastic Italian polenta dinner like Nonna used to make at her weekly Sunday dinner and looking to meet some of your Italian countrymen, you are invited. For the last 9 years, Club Paesano has been hosting this wonderful event. With the help of all the other clubs, we have put this party together, and it’s always been a success. As a CP Member, please feel free to invite your Italian family and friends, whether they are members or not. As I said, this dinner is open to all Italians! Just like dinner at your Nonna’s house on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we do expect a little work out of you. You can’t eat unless you earn it! LoL! By helping out, we mean, coming in to help set up the lodge, set the tables, help in the kitchen, help serve and help clean up.” Many hands lighten the load”. Like Nonna’s house, everyone has a small task that they are responsible for. Depending on your schedule, we have our different jobs. From 4pm to 6:30pm; “Set up” & Kitchen Help”. 7pm, some volunteers to help serve. After that it will be volunteers to help clean up and do dishes. It’s not all work though. Between all of that, we have comradery, a great dinner, a lot of laughs and stories along with a glass of wine. Speaking of wine, we encourage you to bring your favorite bottle of wine or 4 to drink and share with your fellow members and guests. Soft Drinks and water will be provided free of charge. This event is free for all attendees. All I ask for is a rough headcount so we know how much polenta to make and we also need about 5 volunteers to make roasts to go into the sauce which will accompany the polenta. Beef, pork or chicken will be great. If you can volunteer to make a roast, please let me know. If we already have enough volunteers, I will let you know so you don’t make one for nothing, but being Italian, no food ever goes to waste!! This is always a fun event, so please join us if you can! Remember to “RSVP”.

We will also be handing out our 1st ever Club Paesano Scholarships to our 3 deserving candidates after our dinner. Join us in congratulating them in their continued education.

Fun Committee:

Well, our Monday Night Social has come to a successful end as of this past Monday. It was a great season and we will resume again on Monday September 9th. The 1st Monday after Labor Day. We had a fantastic time. There were some terrific meals served up and enjoyed along with all of our CP family FUN! All of the regulars that show up every Monday have formed a family bond and we’ve learned to really enjoy each other’s company. That being said, we always encourage more members to come and enjoy themselves. Come and enjoy your fellow members. You don’t have to make it every Monday night, and this isn’t an event that you “Must” attend. It’s out there for any member that just wants to come out and enjoy time with other members, forming bonds and strong friendships! If you haven’t been to one, or if you haven’t been to one in a long time, I encourage you to stop by next September and see what you think.

The “Fun Committee” is still working on some summer time events. Whether at the club or outside of the club, we are working on it and will let you know as soon as we have a plan. Come out and get to know your club and its members!

Concert in the Park:

On Saturday August 10th, we will have our annual “Concert in the Park”. No time like the present to start planning to come. Invite your families, friends and anyone that likes to have fun! Let’s do our best to make this a hit! There will be more details in next month’s newsletter. Please make plans to attend and make it Great!

Paesano Bocce Club:

Last Sunday we hosted our annual bocce “Meet & Greet” tournament. We had over 40 people sign up with a mix of newer players and experienced players! It was a great day and shows how popular our sport is becoming!

Our Bocce club is within days of starting our 2024 Bocce season! We have grown so much that we needed to start our Tuesday thru Thursday night leagues a week early. Our new official start will be Tuesday May 28th, a week earlier than last year. This is a great problem to have! Our league has expanded to 140 members. We are up at least 30 members from last year. This just goes to show how popular our beloved sport is becoming and it also shows the hard work and tenacity of our board and our members. Everyone is going out and inviting friends and acquaintances to come out and roll. Once they get out on our “World Class” courts and roll a few games, they usually get hooked to the sport and want to play again. It’s a beautiful game that anyone can play. Our fantastic courts just got better looking with the addition of our beautiful fence that we’ve just installed around the north side of the courts facing the Springwater trail. It looks fantastic and is a great way to advertise your business! Special thanks go out to our Court Supervisor, Doug Burchak for planning it out and getting it installed. I’d also like to thank Mario Pompei, Danny Taylor, Carmen Willis and Mike Merrigan for helping him out. If you haven’t been out to our courts or would like more information about the sport, how to join, sponsor, donate or rent, please contact one of our board members, or go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com . I am so proud and happy to be a part of this. Our board and members continue to work hard and our next endeavor is to cover these beautiful courts with a roof! To build this roof, we will be working to raise funds to put towards it. Speaking of raising money, I am so happy to announce that the “Paesano Bocce Club” has now become a “501-C 3” Non-Profit, which means that we can accept donations, material, labor etc. and our donors will be able to get a tax write off. If you have any one of these things that you can donate, please see one of our board members for more information and a receipt for your taxes. This is a huge move towards obtaining the roof and also expanding our sport and our Bocce Family! Thank you so much Paul Barasch for making it a reality! You went out and made it happen. It’s something that we needed! Please go to our website and check out what we have to offer. Bocce Signs for advertisement, pavers and bocce “swag”. Any profits that we make on that goes directly into our “Cover the Courts” fund. I really think that we are on our way to putting Paesano Bocce on the “Big Stage” and getting us recognized in the sport of bocce. Big Props go out to our Board of Directors for putting their heads together and working so hard to make our club a success. If you are a bocce member, and see these people, remember to give them some love for all of their hard work. President; Mario Pompei / VP-Treasurer; Rick Cervi; Competition Chair; Brad Cotton / Court Maintenance & Supervisor; Doug Burchak; League & Tournament Coordinator; Kelly Barasch; Events, Donations, & Information Chairs; Carol Neilson and Lori Bass / Consiglio; Larry Cereghino. A huge round of applause! Even though our summer leagues are filled, you can still play on our “Fall League” coming up in September and if you are interested, you can always ask one of our board members to meet you at the courts to learn the game and play a few games. Anyone of us would be happy to meet you and introduce you to the sport. You just may become a regular once you get hooked! Here’s to a great season!

Thoughts & Prayers:

Our thoughts and prayers go out to our Club Paesano members and families! Let us always keep our CP Members in our thoughts and prayers too. I would also like to pass on an invitation from Susan Manicosy. She is the daughter of long-time member Wilbur Manicosy. Wilbur passed away a while ago, but Susan and her family are going to have a “Celebration of Life” get together for him on Sunday June 16th at “The home of Club Paesano”, Cedarville Lodge & Park. The celebration will go from 1pm till 6pm. Susan and her family have graciously invited all Club Paesano members to her dad’s celebration of life. Whether you knew Wilbur or not, please feel free to join all of his family and friends. Susan would like to get an “RSVP” from our members who will be attending so she can purchase the right amount of food. If you plan to attend, please let me know and I will pass the guest list to her. Thank you, Susan! If you have anyone that is in need of some extra prayers, please let me know and I will add them to our newsletter.

 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.

Gresham Chamber of Commerce / Charity Events:

Club Paesano went to the Chamber of Commerce “Spring Expo”. They let us set up a table along with other chamber members to let everyone see who we are and what we do here at the club. We answered a lot of questions and advertised not only CP, but Paesano Bocce Club and Cedarville Lodge for rentals. We thought that we’d give everyone a treat, so we made tortellini and fresh focaccia bread and handed out samples. Everyone loved it and raved about how good it was! Thank you to our VP, Jimmy Calcagno and Mario Pompei for joining and helping me with that! Last Sunday, CP hosted the “Pink Sista’s” 1st Half Marathon. We allowed them to stage at the club as they were using the “Springwater trail”. They invited breast cancer survivors to run, jog or walk in it. They had over 90 participants, and were able to raise $4000 that will go to their cause. This was truly a proud moment for Club Paesano. Our relationship with Deb Hart and the “Pink Sista’s” continues to grow. They are terrific people to be friends with!

LaCarota Question:

It looks like our “Wine King” is here to stay and he means business again, especially if he has scared all of you so much that you now refuse to answer my LaCarota questions anymore. Do you now think that Mario “The Mauler” Pompei, will automatically win our coveted bottle of CP Vino? In last month’s question, Mario was the only one to answer and answered correctly too!  Mario’s persistent barrage of answers must have left you in a daze and some of you may be putting up the white flag and just giving up! Should I just present the “Wine King” with the next 7 bottles of wine?? Are you all just saying “No Mas”? Naa, I don’t think so. I know that you all were just distracted by the “Solar Eclipse” and all the other phenomenal events going on around the world. Here is your chance to get back into the ring with our Champ. Mario is looking for another “Chump” to crush. Don’t be that person! I’m going to make this easy for our next “Up and Comer” to give the Champ a challenge! Seeing that we are having our “Polenta Dinner” this month, I am asking you to give me your favorite Polenta Recipe: I will pick a random winner just for entering the recipe. I love polenta and feel that there are several terrific dishes out there. That’s it, pretty simple. If you want a chance at the crown, then send me a recipe. All answers will be entered to win. Let’s see if someone can knock the King off his throne!

Final Thoughts:

As I told you all, I had the chance to go home and visit my parents, family and friends recently. It had been a while since I had been back to Canada and visited with a lot of my close family and friends. I’ve been meeting my folks in Italy, so I haven’t been back there in a while. It actually made me see how much I truly missed it. It was so refreshing, and in ways felt like I never left. While I was there, I had the opportunity to go back to my old club for its “Members Banquet”. I have to say, it was beautiful! “The Ciociaro Club of Windsor”. It’s a huge club. Please look them up on Google. The club was built in 1975, (Sounds Familiar) I practically grew up there. My parents were part of the original members and along with so many member’s children, we all spent endless days there. Playing, working and eventually becoming members and working pieces in what is a great club today! At this Member’s Banquet, I ran into some of my family and friends, along with their kids. They were all still solid staples of our club. I guess if I hadn’t left, I would still be an active member there too. At this Banquet, there were 1200 guests! Members with family. 1200 PEOPLE! My CP Members, it was amazing! I wish that you all could have been there to experience it. I know that our club, Club Paesano, was once filled with our members and guests too. I hear the stories from our senior members of the Italian Picnics and how big they used to be. I realize that times have changed and family dynamics have changed too, but if my old club is still steaming ahead with members, I ask you, why can’t we still do the same? I’ve been told several times, “Rick, we are not back east”, “Rick, we are not in Canada, it’s different back there”. “The Italian population and density are way bigger back there”! You know something, I don’t buy that. I agree that the Italian population isn’t as big in Portland, but I believe that we have enough Italians here to have a bigger and more active membership. I don’t expect 1200 people, but if we scaled it down to what we have here, I see no reason why we couldn’t have a solid 200 guests at every one of our events. I’ve said it a million times, “We are the only Italian Club in the area with a place to call home”. Cedarville Lodge & Park. We have property and it’s a beautiful site with bocce courts and a terrific atmosphere. No other “Club” in this area has what we have! We are a social club that operates with volunteers. Our members volunteer their time to better this club. Not only that, but you have a place to meet and to call your own. It’s a place to meet your fellow members, get to know them, invite your friends, and have a great time. Please, please don’t let this opportunity slip away. This club is nothing without each and every one of you. It’s not only that we need you, but you need to enjoy yourselves and what the club has to offer you. Like all things, there is room for changes and there is plenty of room for growth. We can change our events and evolve with the times. In order to do this, we need everyone’s help and input. Nothing is written in stone, and changes are welcome, but you need to be involved to make things happen! Keep in mind why you joined this club, and what you can do to keep it relevant, fun and most important, alive! I love this club along with you, our members. Let’s do everything we can to keep our tradition and our heritage going! This is your club!

Thank you and te Salute!

Rick

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