L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2013 www.italoamericano.com 19 North Beach Citizens Honors ItalFoods' Richard Armanino Since 2004, North Beach Citizens has honored individuals who demonstrate excellence in service to the underserved and disadvantaged in North Beach. This year, the nonprofit organization will be honoring Richard Armanino on Sunday, November 10th at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club. Since an early age, Richard Armanino has devoted himself to building stronger communities, with a specific emphasis on the Italian Community. He has served as the Chairman of the Board of the San Francisco/Assisi Italy Sister City Program since 2008, as a committee member of the Boys' and Girls' Town of Italy since 2004, as an Area Coordinator for the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) from 20112012, as the San Francisco Giants' community event representative for the Italian Heritage, as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Carlos Park and Recreation Department since 2011, as a member of Il Cenacolo since 2011, and as a member of the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club, Monte Cristo Social Club, and Peninsula Social Club. For ten years, Armanino served as a member of North Beach Citizens' Board of Directors. One of his significant accomplishments was to establish and chair the Community Recognition Award Dinner, with the goal of raising additional funds in order to expand the program offerings available to clients of North Beach Citizens. Since 2004, he has worked together with the committee to pay tribute to individuals who have dedicated a significant part of their lives working for the betterment of their communities. Armanino is being honored for his success in fostering community, for his extensive advocacy efforts on numerous non-profit boards, and for supporting the important mission and work of North Beach Citizens as a dedicated board member. North Beach Citizens is celebrating this member of our community, whose altruistic efforts have benefited San Francisco and especially North Beach. North Beach Citizens was started by a group of residents and merchants in North Beach, who began meeting in 1996 to discuss the ways in which the North Beach community could address the issue of homelessness in their neighborhood. Francis Ford Coppola convened the first meeting after partnering Beach. At the August 1996 meeting, Mr. Coppola articulated his earliest vision for North Beach Citizens: "My idea is that if the City is made up of many, many neighborhoods, that any neighborhood that wanted to do something positive would have to at least know who they're doing it ItalFoods' Richard Armanino with San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, at a fund-raising dinner Armanino organized to benefit the victims of the Emilia-Romagna Earthquake. Photo credit: Nickolas Marinelli with students from Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center to produce a short documentary about homelessness in North for. So part of this has to be a linking of the North Beach people who are homeless to the North Beach community." Mr. Coppola and the North Beach Citizens steering committee of community leaders that developed out of the initial meetings hired Sarah Andrews, one of the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center's youth coordinators who had participated in the making of the North Beach homelessness documentary, as program coordinator. For the next three years, this group built the foundation of North Beach Citizens. Mr. Coppola and others raised funds within the community, holding the first annual fundraiser at Café Niebaum-Coppola. For her part, Ms. Andrews conducted a community survey in North Beach to assess the needs of North Beach's homeless, developed North Beach Citizens' initial program model, and, after hiring North Beach Citizens' first executive director, rented North Beach Citizens' first office space at 718 Columbus Avenue. Those wishing to support the organization, or attend the Tenth Annual Community Recognition Award Dinner honoring Richard Armanino, may contact North Beach Citizens at 415-772-0982. Documentary on California Italians to Premiere at San Francisco's Italian Cultural Institute Italians first came to California in large numbers with the Gold Rush. While most found little gold, they did find a mother lode in farming, fishing, commerce, and winemaking. Finding the Mother Lode documents the experience of Italian immigrants in California, which was markedly different from that of their compatriots elsewhere in the United States. Through stories set in seven Italian communities throughout California, this to the filmmakers' critically acclaimed Pane Amaro (Bitter Bread) on the Italian immigration to the East Coast. Finding the Mother Lode too, is based on extensive research and weaves together oral histories by community members with scholarly analyses which provide the larger historical context. The documentary was co-produced by Gianfranco Norelli and Suma Kurien. Norelli was born in Rome, Gianfranco Norelli and Suma Kurien film examines how economic and social mobility became possible for many Italians in the Golden State. It is also a look at how immigrant identity is maintained and transformed as immigrants become assimilated into mainstream America. The current film is a follow-up where he received a Degree in Political Science from the University of Rome. He moved to the United States in 1979 with a scholarship to study journalism and documentary filmmaking at New York University. In 1980 he was awarded the ITT International Fellowship for Television Journalism. In the last 30 years Norelli has produced a wide range of award-winning documentaries for American and European television networks, including PBS, BBC, HBO, National Geographic, Channel 4 (UK), ZDF-German Television and RAI-Italian National Television. Many of his films have focused on issues of migration and immigration, including a 2001 film for PBS and BBC entitled Taxi Dreams about five immigrant taxi drivers in New York City. His previous film, produced with his wife Suma Kurien, is Pane Amaro (Bitter Bread) about the Italian immigration to the East Coast of the United States. The Italian version of the film was broadcast nationally on Italian television to critical acclaim and an English-language version is used in over 40 US universities as part of courses in sociology, history, film, immigration and Italian studies. Suma Kurien is co-producer and co-writer of the current film as she was of Pane Amaro (Bitter Bread). She is Professor Emerita of LaGuardia Community College in the City University of New York where she founded and ran the nationally recognized Center for Immigrant Education and Training. A native of India who grew up in Africa, Kurien is a fluent speaker of Italian and has lived and worked in New York for over 30 years. Suma holds a doctorate in education from Columbia University's Teachers College. The documentary film will premiere at the Italian Cultural Institute, located at 814 Montgomery Street in San Francisco, on Friday, November 8 th . For further information, please contact the ICI at 415788-7142.

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