What a year 2020 has been and is. My prayers are with all that have been affected by the fires, hurricanes and floods. I would again like to thank my brothers and sisters as well as the many lodges that reached out to me doing this difficult time with my health problems. I would like to assure you your prayers have helped. I’m well on my way to being healthy again.

Now for some Italian trivia.

November is truffle season in Italy,

I saw this cartoon on social media the other day and it seems ironic the COVID-19 pandemic has, in a way, taken the brunt out of Columbus Day celebrations by many local lodges. This issue of the ILeone would be full of pictures of our annual Columbus Day celebration with members enjoying a friendly bocce ball tournament, great food, dessert contest, raffle, and bounce house for the junior members. The pandemic did not allow for us to have an event this year and in view of the “Cancel Culture” occurring in the country it may have been a good thing.

With Christopher Columbus statues being graffitied or torn down across the country I joked Roma Lodge could find a slightly used one, like the one removed from the California Capitol, to donate to the International Agri-Center (IAC) park where we hold our annual celebration.

The good news is that we are all still here; more good news is that the seasonal flu vaccine is available across the valley; your own health care provider will be more than glad to “shoot” you to help you survive the season. The bad news is that Covid-19 vaccines are not yet available … as they say: pray for the cure.

The Fresno County Fairgrounds contains the Fresno County Historical Museum which hosts Italian American Heritage Project; as such, they are seeking stories of Italian immigration interest in our area. If you have photos or stories that you would like to submit, contact Olivia Gallegos at 251-5992, or Sandra West, Friends of the Fair, 1121 S. Chance Ave, Fresno, CA 93702, (559) 650-3247. Contribute according to your ability by contacting Sandra if you wish. They are also accepting names for plaques to memorialize your family in the Valley. (yes, we said this before, but get your family’s name engraved somewhere in the valley so that everyone knows we are here).

The place we love, Notre Dame Hall

Hello members. It is now November, and this pandemic has certainly changed the face of how Order has worked this year. Since it is my job to submit a yearly report to my members, and we still aren’t meeting, I will do it here. I am a bad news first President, so here is the bad news:

1. Our Lodge has not met in person since the pandemic took a foothold in March 2020.
2. We have no revenue from our 98th Anniversary Fundraiser that was cancelled.
3. We have no revenue from the KISS Country/MEGA 97.9 Summer Concert series that was cancelled.
4. Many of our members were unable to work and could not pay their dues.
5. The Grand Lodge has sent suggested recommendations on how to proceed with an election during the covid 19 pandemic. Our Lodge has decided to continue with the same Officers for the 2021/2022 term. This is bad news, because we have several open offices that need to be filled. I have asked many times for our members to step into these roles, but they remain open. When we start to have meetings in person again, I hope this will change.
6. State and National still demand the full per capita dues amounts.

As we enter into the fall months we are still under the mandate of our local government officials. I am writing this on the day I normally would be having a grand council meeting. This has truly been a learning experience for all of us. Who said we could not learn new tricks i.e. “zoom”, conference calls. Many lodges have been using zoom to stay in touch with their members. I have participated on a zoom call every 1st Wednesday of the month with the other State Presidents along with our National President Nancy. We also just completed a Zoom virtual National Plenary meeting in September. This has become a valuable tool for lodges, besides the phone calls, email and text messages.

I will be setting up a conference call for Grand Council in October and like in March, info will be sent to the each filial lodge President’s to participate. I am hoping that by March 2021 we can meet in person for Grand Council. Information has been sent to your Lodge Presidents and Recording Secretaries on how you can have election of officers for the 2020-2022 year, thank you Al and the Judiciary committee for helping review this. If you have not received this information and or have questions please contact either myself or Judge Al.

Being October, unfortunately many Columbus Day