Roma Lodge # 1573

The Pandemic Fallout!

It appears that the nation and California has turned the cor-ner regarding the COVID-19 pandemic as government restric-tions have been reduced. Roma Lodge sits in the center of the state and has recently moved into the less restrictive orange tier for Tulare County. Public venues can now have a 50% oc-cupancy rate which means that Roma Lodge will be meeting again on May 3rd.

History will record the number of deaths and health issues caused by the pandemic. It may be some time before it is deter-mined what affect the disease had on the educational and social development on our school children, families, workplaces, and the economy.

Roma Lodge has not officially met since March of 2020. It is difficult to carryon the work of an organization when all lo-cal lodges depend on the most important tenet of the lodges, which is FRATERNITY. Without monthly meetings it is diffi-cult to move forward when you do not meet.

Probably the biggest impact of the pandemic on the lodge was that we did not have any of our eligible junior members apply for lodge scholarships this year. I looked back at our IL Leone article from last year and we had pictures and biographies of our eight Roma Lodge scholarship recipients.

This phenomenon was not exclusive to Roma Lodge. I have learned from several other college and non-profit scholarship programs that applications were down by over 50%. So yes, the pandemic did have a devasting affect on our young people, to what extent we may not know for years to come. So sad.

Roma Lodge was unable to hold their planned 90th anniver-sary celebration in April of 2020 because of the pandemic. We plan to present our members celebrating five-year anniversa-ries of membership at the May gathering.

5 Year Members
Gianna Daramy, Harper DePaoli

20 Year Members
Kylee Cleek, Clint Curti, Alex Galvan, Shaun Pedroncelli, Amanda Warren

25 Year Members
Jim Chavez, Kathy Chavez, Nicole Clark, Kathryn Cleek, Patrick Marinelli, Cathy Mederos, Dennis Mederos, Megan Mederos, Michael Mederos, Melissa Mederos-Semeos

30 Year Members
Michael DePaoli, Larry Dutto, Tessa Hall

35 Year Member
Bill Benedetti

45 Year Members
Ken Bertorelli, Karen Pedroncelli, Bruce Smith

55 Year Members
Clarence Costa, John Greco and Maryann Luis

65 Year Members
Carole Burner, Janet Cabral, Johnnie Kaye Costa, Betty Pratt, Lorraine Cleek, George Rinaldi

85 Year Member
Joe Signorelli

Roma Lodge members were saddened by the passing of Linda Berra on April 17th. Linda along with husband Dr. Albert Berra are 49-year members of the Porterville Lodge #1596 prior to its closure and their membership moved to Roma Lodge. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Berra Family.