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La mia Verona

A Step Back in time at Our Lady of the Rosary Church

Entering Our Lady of the Rosary Church Social Hall for the 18th Annual Fish Fry on February 8th will take you on a nostalgic journey. A walk through the hall will take you back in time or introduce you to the wonderful life and times of the Italian Community. The entire four walls of the hall will be covered with pictures of families, fishing boats, action photos of fishing, and historical photos. There will be articles on Our Lady of the Rosary Church, human interest articles on members of the Italian Community and much more.

The LoCoco family first introduced the historical display of pictures many years ago. For the past ten years Tom Zolezzi has added pictures and articles of interest to what is now a huge collection. Tom has a wealth of knowledge on the history of Our Lady of the Rosary Church and the Italian Community and he is dedicated to sharing the vast collection.

Life in Little Italy of past years was focused on the fishing industry. The delicious Fish Fry sponsored by the Italian Catholic Federation Branch #230 of Our Lady of the Rosary Church will be an appropriate event to display these historical pictures.

The Convivio Society for Italian Humanities and its auxiliary, the Italian Historical Society of San Diego, will take advantage of this venue to acquaint those present with their endeavors to preserve historical archives and family histories of Little Italy, preserving the Italian culture and establishing an Italian Historical Museum in San Diego. The Convivio Society is launching efforts to gather historical archives and interviews for its upcoming book on the the fishing industry and hopes to enlist those present to participate.

Life Long Friends Donate Endowment to St. Augustine High School

A group of friends, who have known each other for over sixty years and who grew up in Little Italy, met recently for their annual Christmas party. Known as the Sons of Little Italy, the members agreed to award St. Augustine High School with a $10,000 Endowment Fund to be used for tuition. They welcomed this as an excellent opportunity to provide students with tuition assistance for many years to come.

The friends have been meeting every other month for many years in the spirit of Convivio. Whenever you may see a group of people breaking bread together, as the Italians so famously do, enjoying the moment, the company and the conversation , that is the essence of Convivio.

Italian book-gifting from San Diego in Italy

If you are interested in cross cultural italian-american activities that originate in San Diego, you may be interested in a foundation that has recently begun gifting books to children all over Italy. The I Am Foundation is based here in San Diego. At the end of 2005, Bruce Descoteaux, as San Diego resident, translated a children's book by local author Steve Viglione of La Jolla from English to Italian. The title of the book is "Io Sono" or "I Am". "The reason why I decided to translate the book was due to several reasons: one, for the love of Italian and Italy but also due to the fact that the book would be brought to Italy and then distributed to children all over the country...in schools, hospitals, youth and children's groups, etc." The focus and goal of this small book is to gift children with a book that will lead to their positive self image, greater confidence and increased self-esteem. "Knowing the powerful words of inspiration for children that are contained within the book and that it had already been distributed here in San Diego, my passion grew as I was asked to lead a book distribution "mission" to Italy with the author and his wife Dr. Marilyn Powers. During our travels, we visited with children all over the country from Naples to Venice and many towns in between and met with teachers, Doctors, religious leaders and parents who shared our same cross-cultural vision and understanding: that the children of the world are in need of a greater sense of self and value their own greatness and gifts that they will bring to the world. Our groundbreaking experience was absolutely amazing and created an international awareness of good will from San Diego towards Italy; especially for it's children." This first trip to Italy by the Foundation was the inspiration for several other major book gifting missions around the world not only in many states in the U.S. but also to places like Sri Lanka and Mexico.
I wanted you to know that this activity is happening here in San Diego and that it all started with a trip to Italy. Mr. Descoteaux writes: "I was very excited to see your site promoting italian activities and events here in San Diego and wanted to share this with you and anyone you might think may be interested in this type of cross-cultural awareness and connection with Italy. We too are strongly connected to "all things italian" and the love of its people and children."
In the near future we hope to return to Italy and meet with officials for even greater distribution of "Io Sono" and would like to connect with education ministers and those who would be instrumental in national distribution there. During our first trip we were delighted to receive The Vatican's approval of the book which allowed for distribution in some of Rome's largest hospitals for children and visited with administrators of the hospital Buon Gesu' in the heart of the city. I hope this may be of interest to you and the San Diegan italian community here and would like to stay in contact about any interest the community may have regarding the "Io Sono" book and future travels to Italy.
Should you have any ideas or contacts that may be instrumental for a future book gifting trip to Italy, you can contact Mr. Bruce Descoteaux directly at 619-838-5767.