FROM OUR PRESIDENT
ROSANN NANCI
From KCIC President Rosann Nanci
Fall 2023
After all our relaxing summer season, it is now time to harvest our produce. I’m sure there is more than one nonna making tomato sauce and definitely more than one nonno making wine from this year’s crop of pomodori and uva.
With the fall comes all our regular events, but this year we have a fantastic fall line-up of events. The grape harvest known as Vendemmia took place on September 23rd and served as the opening act for our new exhibit at the Okanagan Heritage Museum.
We are honoured to co-sponsor this exhibit, called La Nostra Famiglia Italiana: Our Legacy in Kelowna, which is open from September to January 2024 at the Okanagan Heritage Museum. This is a must see as it celebrates Italian Canadian culture in Kelowna with artifacts that highlight and pinpoint the importance of our rich culture. I encourage everyone take in this amazing exhibit, you won’t be disappointed.
In keeping with our cultural heritage, the KCIC is proud to host this year’s conference for the Italian Canadian Archives Project (ICAP) on October 21-23. This is a group of Italian Canadian academics and historians from across Canada who will come to Kelowna for their annual conference of which our very own Don Rampone will be a keynote speaker. If you are remotely interested in Italian Canadian heritage, then you need to contact the people at La Nostra Familiga (LFNI) and consider attending this conference.
THEN we have a Wine Event called “Un Lavoro D’Amore, Celebrating Italian Wines of the Okanagan” on October 25th. This will be a premier event for our Club as we highlight those Okanagan wineries who grow Italian Varietals. There will be food pairing by our resident chef Ricardo Scebba, a wine panel of some very distinguished wine connoisseurs, and of course it will be hosted at the beautiful Laurel Packinghouse. This will be a very special evening in which we continue to celebrate our Italian Canadian culture and heritage through wine and food. Sorry, tickets are now sold out for this event.
And to bring our heritage and culture theme home, on October 30th the KCIC is very proud to be unveiling the first film of our Legacy Project called “The Casorsos - The First Italian family of the Okanagan”. This beautifully shot film will be presented at the Mary Irwin Theatre in the Rotary Centre for the Arts. This project is a labour of love by our dynamic duo Don Rampone and Gord Hotchkiss – who incidentally won the BC Heritage Award in May this year as outstanding volunteers. Hope to see you there, tickets are still available.
As always, we give a big thank you to all our volunteers – who are really our family as we do so many great things together. If you are interested in being involved in our club’s activities, please reach out to our volunteer coordinator, Tina Vigilante at kcicevents@shaw.ca.
Ciao for now!
Rosann Nanci
KCIC President