While covering a variety of sports on the way to a pair of plum TV gigs, Erin Coscarelli has helped pave the way for women in a particularly male-dominated corner of the broadcasting world.

Fans of the recently minted Las Vegas Raiders have been tuning in to Erin Coscarelli since the team officially made the leap from Oakland in 2020. A year later, Coscarelli signed on as a co-host of ABC’s popular “The Ultimate Surfer.” Having blazed a trail in sports broadcasting, she has deftly navigated a field dominated by men. But the path to success hasn’t always been smooth, and she has faced her share of personal and professional challenges along the way.

Born and raised in a suburb of Los Angeles, Coscarelli says her Italian heritage played a major role in her upbringing.

“I’m a second-generation Italian American,” she shares. “My grandfather, Joseph Coscarelli, immigrated to the United States from Calabria. He settled in Michigan, where he worked as a tailor before moving to Los Angeles, where my dad, Bob, was raised.”

In the face of pervasive and glaring stereotypes, Coscarelli always sought to shine a positive light on her ethnicity and family. “When I was young, I was so proud to represent Italia,” she says. “I was the kid who had the Italia sweatshirt in class.”

Coscarelli learned to be a fierce competitor from an early age, which prepared her for the trials she would face later in life. “I was the baby of the family,” she says. “When you have two older brothers, you’re trying to constantly get their attention and impress them. I blame them for my obsession with competition and sports.”

Coscarelli credits her mother, Linda, with teaching her to never give up, even when all may seem lost. “In my junior high yearbook, the quote below my picture was, ‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle,’” she says. “My mom was battling breast cancer at that time. I was really scared. The more we can be vulnerable and share things we’re going through, we may have the opportunity to help make it get better.”

Her mother survived the ordeal, and Coscarelli went forth to earn a degree in journalism and communications from the University of Southern California.

She began her broadcasting career as a sideline reporter for Fox Sports West, the Pac-12 Network and NBC Sports Network. She also covered the World Series of Poker and the Summer X Games for ESPN.

As an anchor and reporter for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, she covered the Golden State Warriors, San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco Giants and other professional sports teams. In addition, she hosted several shows for the NFL Network and DirecTV on her way to her current positions.

During her rise through the ranks of sports broadcasting, Coscarelli’s beloved brothers passed away.

Broadcasting involves two versions of yourself, according to Coscarelli: who you are and what you’re projecting in front of the camera.

“The thing about being a broadcaster is that you really must be good at compartmentalizing. Whether you’re struggling with a breakup or a death in the family, we’re doing a good job if they don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes,” says Coscarelli. “It was especially tough for me to focus after I lost my two brothers.”

In walking that tightrope, Coscarelli came to realize she was neglecting herself in the process. Adding to the stress was the additional challenge of being a woman in a male-dominated world.

“You need to be more prepared than the male you’re working with,” she explains. “If I get a stat or a pronunciation wrong, I’m given less grace than my male counterpart. There is a lot of pressure to look and talk a certain way. Not a lot of people know what it’s like to be in that seat.”

Coscarelli wishes she’d had a female mentor to guide the younger version of herself through her career. As a result, she has gone out of her way to provide support to women in various professions.

“For me, the women’s initiative is peeling back a layer of myself to let younger women know my stories and my failures,” she says. “I want them to know if they’re feeling this way, they’re not alone.”

During the height of the pandemic, Coscarelli created a live segment on her Instagram account titled “Women Crush Wednesday.” Each week, she interviews women in business and other professions around the world, allowing them to share their stories with more than 100,000 followers.

“Women are a large part of the demographic who own small businesses in the United States,” she says. “Whether it’s owning a restaurant, a coffee company or a brewery, I wanted these women to have exposure from my platform. The pandemic was especially hard on those who owned small businesses, so I’m happy to highlight these incredible women.”

Positive feedback on her Instagram segments motivated Coscarelli to expand her women’s initiative to include wellness services. “When you build it, they will come,” she says. “My best friend, Erica Cedeno, and I collaborated to create the ‘Love Yourself Women Wellness Retreat.’”

Held at a private residence in Los Angeles, the retreats offer a day of self-care that includes yoga, meditation and personal development sessions. Each guest leaves with a gift bag containing items provided by female-owned businesses.

Coscarelli needed all the self-care she could muster last year. While the Raiders were going through one of the most tumultuous seasons in team history, she was grappling with chaos in her personal life, as well. “As the Raiders were going through instability, my father was fighting for his life,” she says. “I was trying to advocate for my father every day in the hospital.”

Coscarelli’s father ultimately lost his battle with cancer. Although she considers 2021 to be the hardest year of her life, Coscarelli has found solace in helping others who are going through similar experiences.

“One of the things that helps heal me through this journey is authentically sharing my story with someone who’s also going through it: helping others feel less alone, especially with all we’ve been through collectively these past two years,” she says. “We need to lean on one another. That’s why I’m invested in empowering women, because I didn’t have that when I started broadcasting.”

As she prepares for the 2022 football season in Las Vegas, Coscarelli continues to uplift women across the Los Angeles area. In the process, she’s honoring an important part of who she is.

“When you have such a proud heritage, you want to represent it the right way,” she says. “Having the last name Coscarelli means so much to me because of what it represents. I always want to make my parents proud.”

The above appears in the May 2022 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

With 11 albums, four PBS specials and a host of world tours under his belt, the popular crossover crooner has devoted his career to fanning Italy’s brilliant musical flame.

He was born in Naples, Italy, but has become a favorite son of Americans from all ethnic backgrounds. Pasquale Esposito is a pop-opera tenor, a PBS superstar, and a successful recording and touring artist. For more than two decades, he has kept the classic songs of Italy and the nation’s vocal icons relevant and exciting for today’s audiences.

The youngest of five siblings, Pasquale grew up listening to Enrico Caruso. He started singing at age 5, and two years later, he was performing in church. He moved to California in 1998 over his parents’ objections, took ESL courses, received his green card through an immigrant lottery and graduated with a degree in vocal performances from San Jose State University in 2009.

All the while, he traveled back and forth to Italy and around the world performing to the delight of countless thousands. In 2007, he joined Gigi D’Alessio and Anna Tatangelo on the U.S. leg of their world tour. Next up was a world tour of his own music titled “Simply Pasquale.”

Pasquale has been no stranger to the recording studio, releasing 11 albums over the years, many of which have been supported with international tours. He started the ball rolling in 2005 with an Italian musical revue dubbed “Naples … That’s Amore!” That was followed in 2009 by “A Brand New Me,” featuring pop music in English and Italian, and in 2011 by “Il Tempo,” a double CD of Italian and Neapolitan standards.

His whole-hearted embrace of his musical heritage was met with critical acclaim and a burgeoning fan base. As his popularity grew, so did the clamor for him to establish a presence on television. In response, he wrote and produced “Pasquale Esposito Celebrates Enrico Caruso” for PBS.

Released in 2015, the program was filmed at the historic Castello Giusso on the Amalfi Coast and featured the renowned Orchestra Santa Chiara. Leaving no stone unturned, Pasquale sought the input of opera legend Placido Domingo.

In a tenor-on-tenor interview woven throughout the special, Pasquale plied Placido with questions about Caruso’s impact and the joys and challenges of the operatic life. The exchange, which offers fabulous insights into the minds and hearts of two great performers, can be viewed on Pasquale’s YouTube channel.

The show was a masterfully produced exploration of the life and legacy of one of the most celebrated vocalists in history. A huge success, it reached millions of viewers and catapulted Pasquale to the next level of stardom.

Later in 2015, Pasquale enjoyed a triumphant debut with the San Francisco Opera during its premiere of Marco Tutino’s “Two Women.” An adaptation of the 1961 film “La ciociara,” starring Sophia Loren, the performance reunited the cinematic icon and the rising vocal star. The pair had shared the stage previously during Loren’s U.S. tour, and a friendship soon blossomed.

I first met Pasquale in 2015 in conjunction with WTTW’s airing of his PBS special. We co-hosted the broadcast on Channel 11, and I welcomed him to the stage of the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles, where he performed to a packed and adoring house.

At one point in the PBS special, Domingo gave the following advice to aspiring singers: “Work hard, be humble and, most importantly, be prepared.” No truer words could be spoken of Pasquale. He is one of the most talented and giving professionals I have ever met.

Since that night at the Arcada, he has remained a close friend to many of his Chicago fans, especially Joe Bruno, who has welcomed Pasquale into his home every time the tenor has performed during the Feast of San Francesca di Paola at Casa Italia.

Pasquale’s second PBS special, “Pasquale Esposito Celebrates Italian Piazzas,” was another outstanding production focusing on the breathtaking art and culture of Italy. It was aired in 2018, and I had the honor of showcasing him around that time at the Arcada, where a sold-out crowd greeted his performance with several standing ovations.

In 2020, Pasquale shot not one, but two more television specials in Naples: “Il Tempo,” a live and remastered version of the album he released 10 years earlier, and “In the Spirit of Christmas,” his first Yuletide special. At the time, however, the pandemic had brought touring to a grinding halt.

In early 2021, I received a call from Pasquale. He was just checking in on what was happening in Chicago, a town he had fallen in love with. When I told him we were bringing back the Columbus Day Parade, he instantly asked, “When is it?” and as quickly added, “I want to come and celebrate with you and my friends out there!”

And celebrate he did. Pasquale hopped on a jet from California and joined us in the parade, leading a massive singalong down State Street, then joining us at Casa Italia for the after-parade celebration. That’s the kind of guy he is.

This year, he’ll finally be hitting the road again after a two-year hiatus. “I treasure my ability to perform in front of a live audience again,” Pasquale says. “My voice is a gift I have received, and it’s a gift I cannot wait to once again share with my friends around the world.”

His highly anticipated “Il Tempo” tour will consist of a mix of songs from the 1880s to the present, including Italian standards, opera classics, Broadway favorites and some original music. “There will be songs with personal stories that have been an important part of my musical journey,” he says. “I miss the love I feel from the audience. This will be our best show ever!”

“Il Tempo” promises to be a multimedia experience that underscores a life devoted to celebrating Italy’s many splendors.

Pasquale Esposito is on a mission to foster his musical heritage. He accomplishes this by way of his God-given talent, a sincere love for people and a huge heart. Caruso, Pavarotti, Bocelli, Esposito: A natural progression in the perpetuation of a glorious tradition.

Pasquale Esposito will perform at a fundraiser for Casa Italia on July 9. For a downloadable PDF, click here.

The above article appears in the April 2022 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

One of the last great performers from the golden age of rock ’n’ roll, Dion DiMucci has recaptured the spotlight by embracing his musical roots.

Dion DiMucci is a living legend known worldwide for hits that span decades and generations, like “Teenager in Love,” “Runaround Sue,” “The Wanderer” and “Abraham, Martin and John.” One of the last great performers from the golden age of rock ’n’ roll, DiMucci is still playing and recording at age 82. On his most recent release, “Stomping Ground,” the rock hall of famer is joined by Bruce Springsteen, Joe Bonamassa, Peter Frampton, Mark Knopfler, Billy Gibbons, Eric Clapton and many more. Speaking with DiMucci, you soon realize why so many of these renowned artists are willing to bestow their talents in tribute to this man, who is not only an oracle of pop music, but also of life itself.

DiMucci, known to legions of fans simply as Dion, was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1939.

“My parents were second-generation Italian,” he says from his winter home in Florida. “My grandparents came here in 1906 and 1909. As a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. He used to take me to Manhattan, and on the way there, we would go by the Statue of Liberty. We would stop, and he would tell stories of how he arrived in America and what the statue represented to him. He also used to say there should also be one on the West Coast to welcome the immigrants who came in from there.”

DiMucci grew up in the Little Italy section of the Bronx and experienced firsthand the positive and negative effects of living in an urban, ethnic enclave.

“It was a rough neighborhood. Guys were always fighting. There were gangs. Jake La Motta used to walk the streets,” says DiMucci, who still has a thick New York accent. “But there was also culture nearby. My grandfather used to take me to the opera at the Windsor Theater near Fordham University, which was only a couple blocks from my house. I heard ‘La Traviata,’ ‘Pagliacci,’ Puccini arias. It was so thrilling.”

Even though he was deprived of a formal education, his grandfather was a well-informed man and impressed upon the future singer the value of lifelong learning.

“He was constantly reading books, newspapers,” DiMucci says. “And he stressed the same for me. Every morning before school, he would make me zabaglione, cracking two eggs and beating the yolks for 20 minutes. He would say, ‘Eat this. It’s brain food.”

DiMucci’s grandfather played a major role in his upbringing, not only because of the example he set, but also because of the amount of time he was able to spend with him. Opening up on a personal subject, DiMucci talked about the dramatically different relationship he had with his father.

“My father had the mind of a 13-year-old. He had no job and really couldn’t support us,” DiMucci says. “But he was an interesting man, and I treasure the time I spent with him. We used to go to the park, lie on our backs in the sun, and he would pick up a leaf and tell me what tree it was from and show me the veins in the leaf. During the summer, we would go swimming at Orchard Beach, sometimes naked, and we would always go to the Bronx River to look at the waterfall, or the Bronx Zoo. We lived a block from there, and together we saw every animal imaginable.”

DiMucci developed a love for American country music, specifically Hank Williams. By the age of 12, he learned to play all of Williams’ hits just by listening to his records. As a teenager, he started making money singing Williams’ songs in bars and even sang “Jambalaya” on Paul Whiteman’s radio show.

But it was doo-wop that propelled DiMucci to fame. He and his friends cut the classic figure of guys standing on a street corner, warming their hands around a garbage can fire and conjuring a capella harmonies out of thin air.

“It was me, Carlo Mastrangelo, Angelo D’Aleo and Fred Milano,” DiMucci says. “We were all street guys, so we called ourselves Dion and the Belmonts after our neighborhood in the Bronx.”

With hits like “Where or When,” “I Wonder Why” and “Teenager in Love,” the group was an immediate success. They began appearing and touring with many big stars, including Bobby Darin (Walden Robert Cassotto), who also grew up in the Bronx and took DiMucci under his wing. In time, DiMucci met a Texan by the name of Buddy Holly.

“We used to run into each other all the time in New York, through events like the Alan Freed show, and he began to like it there,” DiMucci says. “In fact, he married a Puerto Rican woman, Marie Elana, who lived in New York, and they got an apartment near Gramercy Park in the Village. I started to show him around. I introduced him to Manny’s Music Store, Phill’s Men’s Store, egg creams and Parmesan cheese. One day he told me, ‘You know, I’m just a hick from Texas. I had never had Parmesan cheese before. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw an Italian.’”

In February of 1959, the Belmonts were asked to tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as part of the “Winter Dance Party.” Exhausted and worn down by freezing-cold buses, Holly decided to charter a plane. DiMucci was asked to join them on the flight and related his answer on National Public Radio.

“He (Holly) said, ‘You know, it’ll be $36 (per person for the flight),’ and he hit the magic number. I grew up with my parents screaming and yelling at each other for the rent. At the time, it was $36. My mind hadn’t stretched out to that place where I could spend a whole month’s rent on a 45-minute plane flight, so I said no.”

The plane crashed, killing all on board: a tragic event Don McLean immortalized as “the day the music died” in his 1971 hit “American Pie.”

DiMucci had been a heroin addict since age 15, and the tragedy made matters worse, so he checked himself into a hospital for treatment in 1960. After emerging clean and sober, DiMucci went solo, and his career exploded. His “Runaround Sue” hit No. 1, and a year later, “The Wanderer” made it to No. 2. More hits followed, including “Donna the Prima Donna,” with a version sung in Italian. In 1962, he was on top of the world.

The next year, the “British Invasion” swept America, cooling DiMucci’s solo career. A short-lived reunion with the Belmonts didn’t catch fire, either.

“I was with Columbia, which was then run by Mitch Miller, who was kind of an old fogie, and they didn’t know what to do with me,” DiMucci says. “I was being paid $100,000 a year to sit in a room and play piano with Aretha Franklin. They wanted to make, of all things, an album of Al Jolson songs.”

In 1968, however, he released “Abraham, Martin and John.” Recorded shortly after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the song captured America’s overwhelming grief. Versions by Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte and Whitney Houston have enshrined the song as an emblem of an era.

During that second phase of his career, DiMucci found his way back to his musical roots, which extended far deeper than country music.

“I started to get into blues when I was 17, listening to people like Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, and the Chicago guys like Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters,” DiMucci says. “But then I got hooked up with the Belmonts and made all these records, and I sort of forgot about it.”

In 1966, after John Hammond had taken over Columbia, DiMucci recorded an album of blues standards that didn’t earn a major release. In the ensuing decades, his life and career went through many changes, including reunions with the Belmonts, a religious conversion and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

DiMucci kept playing and performing, and in 2006, he recorded “Bronx in Blue,” an album of blues standards that was nominated for a Grammy Award.

“It’s the shuffle thing; I got it in my bones,” DiMucci says. “Lord, that sound! The beat, the chord structure — it’s in my DNA.”

In recent years, DiMucci has recorded a number of blues-oriented albums, including “Blues with Friends” and the single “New York is My Home” with Paul Simon from 2015. His latest release, “Stomping Ground,” represents yet another chapter in his legendary career.

The recording opens with the searing guitar runs of Joe Bonamassa, whose label, Keeping the Blues Alive, released the project. “Dancing Girl” features Mark Knopfler’s trademark sparse licks to a rhumba-like beat. “If You Wanna’ Rock and Roll” is another straight-head blues track featuring Eric Clapton. On “There Was a Time” with Peter Frampton, DiMucci looks back on his life and youth. Although the lyrics come straight from the heart, that’s not what captures DiMucci’s imagination.

“My God!” he bellows. “Did you hear Peter Frampton playing slide? That guy killed it!”

But it is “Angel in the Alleyways” that makes this album extra special. Featuring haunting harmonies by Bruce Springsteen and Patty Scialfa, the lyrics sum up the life of a man who was born in the Bronx and carries the neighborhood with him to this day. At 82, DiMucci is a legend, an oracle and a force still to be reckoned with in rock ’n’ roll. As the notes on the album say, “Dion is like a circling star that never fades, continually generating the energy and force we need to pull ourselves up and start again.”

The above article appears in the March 2022 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

For parents of children on the autism spectrum, and those impacted by similar developmental disorders, the worst four words you can hear are “don’t expect too much.”

So much of the uncertainty facing these families is owed to the broad nature of autism. It’s not a single, uniform disorder, but rather an umbrella diagnosis comprising a range of conditions affecting speech, the sensory system and social interactions. Some neurodiverse children may have a small communications delay compared to their neurotypical peers, while others may be completely nonverbal and exhibit repetitive behaviors. The severity of these symptoms often varies wildly from child to child, and the worst of the effects can be lifelong.

Research doesn’t point to a single cause for autism, but a combination of genetic and environmental factors. And the disorder has no genetic or biological markers for early detection, unlike prenatal screenings for Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis. Most neurodiverse children receive their diagnosis based on symptoms that manifest at 24 months old.

Over the past two decades, the prevalence of autism has risen dramatically along with public awareness. Today, one out of every 54 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, according to a 2020 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So it comes as little surprise that many parents who end up in Dr. Valerie Scaramella-Nowinski’s office are looking not just for diagnosis and intervention, but also for reassurances their neurodiverse children can still have promising lives.

“The brain is an unbelievably robust organ in children,” Scaramella-Nowinski says. “I’ve seen kids with the most severe brain disorders and those with the lightest, and I always tell parents — and I mean this — that the brain is a protective organ, and children are resilient and adaptable beings. With the right help, they can develop so much of their God-given potential.”

As one of the country’s leading pediatric neuropsychologists, with a nationally renowned practice in Orland Park, Illinois, Scaramella-Nowinski brings more than four decades of clinical experience to the fore when treating autism and other pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders, brain injury, and attention and learning problems like dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Her Pediatric Neuropsychology Diagnostic and Treatment Center has worked with thousands of children since its founding in 1995, and Scaramella-Nowinski’s laser focus on how the mind and body work in tandem, combined with a team approach to treatment, have been game-changers in maximizing positive outcomes for her patients.

Perhaps most important, she is giving parents of neurodiverse children something that is often lacking in discussions of their treatment and ultimately their lifelong potential — hope.

“We tend to take a Band-Aid approach in our medical system instead of looking at the underlying conditions. We treat without always knowing what we’re treating,” Scaramella-Nowinski says. “But neuroscience as a field has grown, and that is changing. There’s tremendous hope in seeing how the brain and body connect, and how we can use that to develop health and well-being.”

The 1990s were called the “decade of the brain,” as they were marked by major advances in neuroscience research. The insights gleaned from that point forward have given clinicians like Scaramella-Nowinski a greater understanding of brain pathways in children and how much those may be affected by internal and external stressors. “The more severe the disorder, the more brain pathways are affected, and the more pathways we see affected, the more pervasive the problem,” she says.

Although research never stops and new discoveries are made daily, Scaramella-Nowinski knows one thing for certain: The brain has the power to learn beyond injury; beyond illness; and, perhaps most applicable to her patients, beyond genetics. In fact, she says only a small percentage of gene-related conditions in the brain cannot be changed, and those are the degenerative ones. The vast majority of children, even those on the spectrum, do not exhibit those.

Scaramella-Nowinski focuses on what she calls the “head-to-toe connections” — the interplay between biological, environmental and even spiritual factors. Her approach brings together all the key stakeholders — parents, physicians, allied health professions and educators — to holistically treat a neurodivergent child. Sometimes that means ruling out mitigating disorders, such as epilepsy, before proceeding with proven autism treatments to kick-start brain development.

“You never want to give patients false hope, but I’ve been around long enough to see beautiful things,” Scaramella-Nowinski says. “If you know what’s going on, and you know how to test brain function, and you know how to set up a treatment team, a child’s natural abilities will flourish a heck of a lot more when you know what you’re treating.”

Born in Chicago and raised in the Beverly community on the city’s South Side, Scaramella-Nowinski is one of five children of the late Louis and Nina Scaramella, both Italian immigrants. Her parents hailed from San Lucido, a seaside town in the province of Cosenza in Calabria, though the couple-to-be didn’t meet each other until a fateful night in 1948 when Louis was visiting family in New York City and was introduced to Nina by his cousin.

Scaramella had already trained as a physician in Italy, and completed his internship and residencies in Chicago, where he and Nina moved after they were married. He opened a solo practice in 1952 and did a stint in the Army Medical Corps from 1954 to 1956. Specializing in otolaryngology, he pioneered a surgical facial nerve procedure, earning international renown. But his greatest impact was as a husband and father, instilling values in his children that would shape their lives for decades to come.

“I grew up in a close-knit family, a medical family that truly espoused service to others,” Scaramella-Nowinski says. “We learned how to have respect for ourselves and for others, and that life is about helping others no matter what field you’re in. All of that came from our strong Italian heritage.”

Growing up, Scaramella-Nowinski, along with her siblings, helped out with odd jobs around her father’s office. She remembers encountering patients whose once-expressive faces had been ravaged by injury or tumors, their features trapped in a suspended state of lifelessness.

“Nerves give life to the face,” Louis Scaramella once said. His revolutionary surgical technique, in which healthy nerves were grafted from donor areas of the body and implanted in the face to restore function and ease paralysis, helped countless patients during his more than 50 years in medicine.

But what stuck with Scaramella-Nowinski were the before-and-after photographs her father took of his patients’ progress. “I’d see them, and it would bring tears to my eyes,” she says. “At a young age, I saw what it meant for someone to have their face return to normal. They would be so happy to just smile again.”

Scaramella-Nowinski never forgot her father’s example, nor the lesson that medicine, at its heart, should be about treating people, not simply their ailments. After high school, she attended Loyola University in Chicago, attaining a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and immediately after earned a master’s in social work from the same university in 1975. Her earliest jobs included positions as a school social worker in a special education department and as a clinical social worker in the south Chicago suburbs. In 1976, she took a job as a medical social worker in the neuropsychiatry department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois.

It was there she met Dr. Eugene Voltolina, a fellow Italian and one of the first neuropsychiatrists and authors in the country to recognize the then-undervalued connection between mental and physical health. Impressed by Scaramella-Nowinski, he invited her in 1977 to join his neuropsychiatric institute, which treated conditions related to brain behavior and development, in suburban Palos Heights, Illinois.

A tremendous number of children and teens impacted by neurological disorders came through that clinic at a time when many were being unnecessarily institutionalized, and professionals were only seeing part of the story, Scaramella-Nowinski says.

“We looked at the whole child, their whole brain development,” she says. “When you worked with them, you could see their growth. We had a commitment to helping people with their health and well-being, and we made a connection with them.”

It was immensely fulfilling work, so much so that in 1980 she decided to go back to school to earn a doctorate in neuropsychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. She was so enamored with the inner processes of the human mind, she sought out Ralph Reitan, a titan in the field who is often called the “father of clinical neuropsychology,” to study directly with him. Reitan developed a groundbreaking diagnostic assessment for brain behavior, and Scaramella-Nowinski says his mentorship proved to be a blessing for her career.

While Scaramella-Nowinski was working toward her doctorate, she also was growing her family, even giving birth to a child during the penultimate year of her dissertation. She met her husband, now-retired Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas E. Nowinski, years earlier at her sister’s wedding. Scaramella-Nowinski was studying abroad in Rome at the time, so she and Thomas wrote letters to one another during a blossoming romance separated by an ocean. Upon her return home, the couple wed and, in the intervening 47 years, raised four children who all now work in some form of public service and have given the couple 10 grandchildren.

In 1995, Scamarella-Nowinski set out on her own and opened the Pediatric Neuropsychology Diagnostic and Treatment Center, where she and her team have since developed diagnostic, brain-training and education programs for countless children. She has published several scholarly articles on learning and child development and is a much-sought-after speaker, traveling the country and world to share her insights and expertise. In 2003, Scaramella-Nowinski and her family founded the nonprofit Neuropsychology C.H.I.L.D. (Child Health Initiative for Learning and Development) Foundation to promote public awareness of research and clinical work related to pediatric brain behavior.

The ultimate goal, she says, is to empower parents of neurodiverse children with individualized tools that foster brain development and learning.

“In life, we don’t want kids to be specialists; we want them to be generalists,” Scaramella-Nowinski says. “But that’s not how all children grow. If the parents are guided from early on, and we find out what they’re good at, these children will learn and develop.”

Even after they’ve become adults, many of Scaramella-Nowinski’s patients will reach out to her with notes and letters about their progress and the brighter, more fulfilling lives they now lead.

“I’ve seen this happen hundreds and hundreds of times,” she says. “They may have some difficulties here and there, but they have love, they have health and they have well-being. And I get to see them live their lives.”

Scaramella-Nowinski stops for a moment to acknowledge not just the connections between brain and body she’s championed throughout her career, but also the lifetime impact of a doctor-patient relationship built on a foundation of hope.

“It’s nice to be kind of old,” she says with a laugh. “You establish these connections over the years, and you can see when you’ve touched people’s lives.”

Just as important to Scaramella-Nowinski are the countless ways her patients have touched her life. “I can honestly say,” she assures, “that I learn more from these children than they will ever learn from me.”

For more information, click here.

The above appears in the December 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

A fierce advocate on behalf of his heritage for decades, Basil Russo has undertaken the Garibaldian task of uniting the community on a national level.

Basil Russo was watching the ballgame on TV with his immigrant grandfather when Cleveland Indians slugger Rocky Colavito hit his record-tying fourth consecutive home run against the Baltimore Orioles on June 10, 1959. Russo was only 12 at the time, but that moment is forever etched in his memory.

“My ‘nonnu’ was a tough, old Sicilian who rarely showed much emotion, but there he was with tears of joy running down his face,” Russo recalls. “Those sports heroes were so important to our immigrant forebears because they gave them hope that they, too, could someday be accepted in America.”

In the ensuing decades, Russo has gone to bat for his community and culture on countless occasions, consistently “knocking it out of the park” in memory of his ancestors.

“My grandparents had little formal education, but they taught me more about what was important in life than anything I ever learned in school,” he explains. “Family, faith, heritage and a relentless work ethic. Preserving those values are my ways of thanking them.”

Among his many accomplishments:

• Russo was the driving force behind the Bishop Anthony Pilla Italian American Studies Program at his undergraduate alma mater, John Carroll University.
• He is a founding member and chairman of the Cleveland Italian Film Festival, and he has served as chairman of the Greater Cleveland Columbus Day Parade since 2004.
• He is a founding member and past officer of the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation, which has raised more than $3 million for charitable purposes.
• As national president since 2014 of the Italian Sons and Daughters in America, he has implemented strategies that have grown member investment assets from $62 million to $240 million while increasing social media traffic from next to nothing to 3 million visitors and followers annually.
• Most recently, as president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, he has launched an unprecedented movement to unite Italian Americans nationwide.

“Other ethnic and racial groups have accomplished much more on the national level than the Italian-American community has because they have been much better organized than we have been,” Russo says. “If Italian Americans want to have a meaningful role in influencing our nation’s collective culture, we need to join hands and work together.”

All four of Russo’s grandparents were born in small mountain villages in Sicily, and all of them eventually settled in an Italian enclave in Cleveland. With a father who served as an Ohio state representative, Russo had a firm foundation in public service when he launched a successful run for Cleveland councilman. He was only 24 at the time and still in law school.

“Serving on the city council gave me the chance to impact people’s lives in a meaningful way, especially among the many Italian immigrants I represented early in my career,” Russo explains.

He was elected majority leader at 29, and opened his own law firm at 32 after an unsuccessful run for mayor. Stints as a judge for the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas rounded out his career in public service. (He earned an Excellent Judicial Service Award from the Ohio Supreme Court for his performance in the latter post.)

Meanwhile, his involvement in the Italian-American community was ramping up.

In addition to the accomplishments noted above, Russo has served as the president of the Justinian Forum, a regional Italian-American bar association, for the last 20 years, and as a member of the executive committee of the National Italian American Foundation from 2016-21.

Russo and other national leaders have long acknowledged the need for the community to unite in common cause. With the Columbus controversy at a fever pitch when he stepped up to the presidency of COPOMIAO last October, he knew the time was ripe.

“The lack of respect shown to our statues, our parades and our day was a wake-up call for our community,” Russo explains. “Everyone was looking for ways to work together to address the issue and defend our history and our heritage.”

Russo personally contacted the presidents of all 35 organizations that comprised COPOMIAO and added another 15 members through additional outreach.

“Most of the initial member organizations were from the East Coast,” Russo notes. “All the newer groups are from states like California, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania. We now represent groups from throughout the country.”

Russo would have been happy had he convinced 100 community leaders to participate in his first National Italian-American Summit Meeting, which was conducted via Zoom on Feb. 20, 2021.

“I figured we were starting with 50 groups, so wouldn’t doubling that be a wonderful thing?” Russo recalls. “But the numbers kept rising to 150, 200, 250, 300. In the end, we maxed out at 354 participants. I was overwhelmed. It was a very emotional experience for me.”

Russo has set forth a sweeping agenda for COPOMIAO that includes the following:

• Reconnecting with our youth — “That’s one of the most pressing problems facing Italian-American organizations today,” Russo says. “We have a great team working on ways to get younger Italian Americans more engaged.”
• Promoting Italian language instruction — “More American students attend college courses in Italy than any other country in the world outside of England,” Russo points out. “There’s a lot of interest in all things Italian that we can capitalize on to increase the number of Italian language programs and classes across the country and increase enrollment in those classes.”
• Enhancing charitable involvement — “We’ve been conducting a survey, and the initial results are impressive,” Russo notes. “Our organizations already do so much to contribute to the education of our youth and to help those in need. We’d like to encourage them to work together to accentuate that giving.”
• Supporting museums and cultural institutions — “We have wonderful operations across the country,” Russo says. “We’d like to assist them in terms of sharing expertise, exhibits and educational material on important subjects like Columbus.”
• Shaping public policy — “We need to decide what we stand for and what would benefit us,” Russo asserts. “From there, we need to develop an agenda that can be pursued at every level of government.”
• Saving Columbus — “The anti-Columbus playbook is already starting to unravel in the face of advocacy and legal action on a variety of fronts,” Russo reports. “We need to dramatically step up that activity if we have any hope of turning the tide.”
• Getting the word out — “Social media is a powerful tool, both in terms of uniting the community and having an impact on the community at large,” Russo says. “We need to maximize our use of those tools to get where we want to go.”

Tall orders, no doubt, but Russo is supremely confident.

“We’re a passionate and creative people with a lot of pride in and connection to our heritage. Those are traits that lend themselves to success in whatever we undertake,” Russo says. “I’m excited and energized by the response we’ve received throughout the country. As long as we keep building momentum, I don’t think there’s any challenge we can’t overcome.”

For more about COPOMAIO, click here.

For more about the organization’s efforts on behalf of Columbus, click here.

The above appears in the October 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

With a notable diplomatic pedigree and multinational roots, Thomas Botzios brings a global perspective to his role as the Midwest’s new Italian consul general.

If anyone was born to be a diplomat, it’s Thomas Botzios.

The Midwest’s new Italian consul general pursued the same career path as his father and uncle, Elias and Christos Botzios, both of whom served in the Greek diplomatic corps, and was raised to view the profession as a noble one.

“My father always told me that being a consul is not only a matter of diplomacy, it’s a matter of service, to be of help to someone who needs it,” Botzios explains.

“More than a profession, my father gave me a heritage.”

Botzios drew additional inspiration from his father’s own youth.

“My father left his home in a little village in the north of Greece for high school in Athens and then university in Rome,” Botzios says. “Through his example, I knew what it was to leave a hometown and home country and establish a new life in another land. It changed the way I looked at life.”

While pursuing a law degree at Rome’s renowned La Sapienza university, Elias Botzios met Flora Coppotelli, who was working at her family’s business. After the two were married and Elias entered the Greek diplomatic corps, he was assigned to Rome, allowing the couple to raise their three children in Italy while maintaining close ties to Greece.

“I’m proud to have the point of views of two countries because I really believe that the Western world has its roots in those ancient periods,” Botzios says. “I consider it a privilege to have in my blood both ways of thinking.”

Botzios’ path to diplomatic service wasn’t a direct one. Like his father before him, he earned a law degree from La Sapienza. Then he worked for a publishing company and as an attorney in private practice before taking the exams at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Those experiences have stood him in good stead.

“Having a law degree and being in the private sector has given me a real-world perspective on how to run a public office,” he notes. “Among many other duties, a diplomat advocates for the general interests of his country, and he has to manage an office with a lot fewer resources than were available in the past.”

Botzios’ first assignment after joining the ministry in December 2001 was with the Directorate General for Human Resources. After that, he served from 2005-09 as the head of the Economic and Commercial Office in Belgrade. He accomplished one of his main goals — of building economic bridges between Serbia and Italy — during that assignment.

His next stop was in Washington, D.C., where he was chief of staff to the ambassador of Italy from 2009-13. While there, he met his future wife, Elisa Campoli, whom he married in Rome in 2020. At the tail end of his tenure in the nation’s capital, he and Campoli took a whirlwind tour of the country by car, stopping in more than a dozen states as well as in Canada. “In those 21 days, I had the chance to know the American people and the American way of thinking more than all four years in Washington, D.C.,” Botzios fondly recalls.

Botzios’ next assignment had a profound impact on him. During his seven years as the deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Crisis Unit, he coordinated Italy’s efforts to assist its citizens around the world whenever disaster struck.

“We were there to help and protect Italians in great emergency, whether it was from terrorist events, kidnappings, hijackings, social unrest, earthquakes, flood or pandemics,” he shares. “You touch people, and they touch you. My counterparts were fathers, mothers, losing children, spouses. I shared their pain and helped them through the worst time of their lives. It was very challenging and demanding, and it changed me from a human and professional point of view.”

For Botzios, the position wasn’t a job; it was a mission.

“You don’t work in the Crisis Unit; you marry the Crisis Unit,” he explains. “Your mind is on it 24/7. The telephone can ring any time, day or night, and you’re on a plane to assist Italians in terrible and traumatic circumstances. I consider myself lucky to have played a part.”

Botzios is thrilled to now be in Chicago, despite arriving in the midst of a pandemic.

“Chicago has all the advantages of a big American city, but there’s also a human dimension that you can enjoy. You can be among the skyscrapers of the Loop, but then you have all these wonderful neighborhoods,” he enthuses. “It’s a dynamic city from an economic point of view, a cultural point of view, an academic point of view, a historical point of view. I’m looking forward to getting to know the city better now that restrictions have been lifted.”

Botzios is a firm believer that consuls general should launch projects that are worthy of continuation by their successors. To that end, he has mapped out a three-part plan.

In addition to improving the efficiency of his own office wherever possible, he’s looking to work with the other Italian offices to present a united front in Chicago and the Midwest.

“We have the Italian Consulate, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Trade Commission,” Botzios says. “We have different fields of endeavor — consular affairs, cultural outreach, economic promotion — but we’re all under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and we all serve the Italian state. I would like to work together to present Italy as one entity.”

Out in the community, he’d like to start bridging the gap between established Italian-American residents and more recent arrivals from Italy.

“We have Italians living here for decades, but we also have Italian citizens who came recently and who are physicians, university professors, scientists, entrepreneurs and other professionals,” Botzios observes. “Maybe something can be done to improve the inter-Italian dialogue, and I think the many existing associations are a great place to start. I’d also like to help in whatever way I can to improve communication and cooperation between those associations.”

On the economic front, Botzios is hoping to build bridges between businesses in Italy and the Midwest, as he did between Italy and Serbia.

“Italian entrepreneurs know the East Coast well, and then they jump right away to the West Coast. They miss the great part of the American territory in between. They don’t know the full depth of possibilities of doing business in Chicago and the Midwest, and the same can be said for business owners here,” Botzios points out. “There are so many opportunities for Italian entrepreneurs here and for Midwest entrepreneurs in Italy. I’d like to highlight those opportunities and begin the process of establishing stronger ties.”

The above appears in the August 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

A dedicated community leader and standout public relations professional with deep Chicago roots, Robert Allegrini has been tapped to helm one of the nation’s preeminent Italian-American organizations.

Like many Italian-American offspring of the Greatest Generation, Robert Allegrini had to find his way back to his roots. His mother was born in Italy, as were both of his paternal grandparents. But Allegrini’s father was a decorated veteran of World War II and a patriotic American who downplayed his ethnicity both at home and in public. He went off script at a key point in his son’s life, though, and that made all the difference in the world.

“When I was 10, we traveled as a family to Italy, and as we wandered through the Colosseum in Rome, he took out his Swiss Army knife and dislodged a pebble from one of the walls, probably violating a dozen Italian laws regarding the defacement of antiquities in the process,” Allegrini recalls. “He pressed it into my hand and said, ‘Hold onto this because it represents the Roman heritage that flows through your veins.’”

Today, as Allegrini steps up to the presidency of the National Italian American Foundation, that moment looms large.

“I hadn’t given much thought to my heritage until that day, but I sure have given it a lot of thought since then,” Allegrini says. “It really awakened my interest in and appreciation for all things Italian and set me on a path that has led me here.”

The first major step along that pat was a graduate fellowship to the University of Florence in Italy, where he studied foreign affairs subsequent to receiving a degree in public relations from Northern Illinois University. After that, there was no turning back.

He was an early member of the Young Adults Division of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, serving as the organization’s executive director from 1987-90. He founded the Chicago chapter of the Accademia Italiana Della Cucina in 2000 and served as president of the Italian-American Chamber of Commerce from 2009-12.

Currently, Allegrini is the honorary consul for the Republic of San Marino for a five-state jurisdiction in the Midwest, and he was named the co-chairman of the Milan-Chicago Sister Cities program in February 2021. His service to the Italian-American community was honored by the republic of Italy in 2002, when then-President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi conferred upon him the title of Commendatore in the Order of Merit.

Before the NIAF board of directors named him president in May, he had served as a board member since 2007 and as executive vice president from 2017-21.

“When people ask me why I’m such a strong supporter of the foundation, I tell them the reason is simple,” Allegrini explains. “It’s because the mission of the foundation conforms to my worldview, and that view, simply put, is that the world would be a better place if only it were a bit more Italian.”

Allegrini’s steady ascent to one of the top spots in the Italian-American community has been paralleled by his rise through the ranks of the hospitality industry.

A job as a management trainee for one of the local Regent hotels in 1986 led to executive positions at Regent, Swissôtel, Hyatt and Hilton, culminating in a decade as vice president of communications for the Americas with Hilton. In 2016, he was named one of 25 extraordinary minds in hospitality marketing by the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International.

“Robert brings a unique combination of business acumen, managerial expertise and passion for our mission to preserve, promote and protect our Italian-American heritage to his new position as president,” NIAF Chairman Robert E. Carlucci says. “Moreover, his knowledge of the Italian language and culture will further NIAF’s goal of remaining the preeminent organizational bridge between Italy and the United States of America.”

Founded in 1975, the National Italian American Foundation is dedicated to “preserving the Italian-American heritage and culture, promoting and inspiring a positive image of the legacy of Italian Americans, and empowering ties between the United States and Italy,” according to Allegrini.

As the foundation’s new president, he is charged with overseeing day-to-day operations, administering programs, conceiving of new programs, raising funds, planning cultural and fundraising events throughout the country, and serving as a spokesperson for the venerable organization.

That’s no small task, especially given how much the organization accomplishes in a given year. Chief among its many initiatives, the NIAF:

• presents hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships annually;
• funds college-level Italian clubs through its Campus initiative;
• sends 20 young adults to Italy each year through its Voyage of Discovery program;
• supports up-and-coming cinematographers through the Russo Brothers Film Forum;
• bestows sizeable grants to a wide range of Italian-American projects;
• provides online and in-person programming on a variety of topics, including dual citizenship, genealogy, food and wine;
• works closely with the Italian American Congressional Delegation on legislation affecting the community;
• places outstanding college students and recent graduates in offices of delegation members through its Congressional Fellowship program;
• spearheads events on Capitol Hill through the Frank J. Guarini Public Policy Forum;
• designates a “Region of Honor” in Italy each year and plans a variety of economic and cultural exchanges to the region;
• and hosts an annual gala honoring outstanding individuals in a variety of fields.

Despite the pressure of his many responsibilities, Allegrini hopes to find time for some ambitious goals of his own.

“My chief aim is to raise enough funding between gifts, bequests and memberships to make the foundation operationally self-sufficient as soon as possible,” he says. “Then all the funds raised from the foundation’s many events and activities can be used purely for programs to benefit the Italian-American community.”

Allegrini is also intent on expanding access to subject matter that conveys Italy’s vast cultural legacy.

“That involves building NIAF’s grant program and supporting more worthy projects such as books, films, plays, websites, exhibits and apps that showcase the diverse aspects of Italian and Italian-American heritage and history,” Allegrini explains. “I won’t be content until all Italian Americans know the full richness of their heritage and the rest of the country knows who we are, too!”

For more information about the National Italian American Foundation, visit niaf.org.

The above appears in the July 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

Crediting the JCCIA with setting him on his life’s path, Ron Onesti is looking to return the favor as the organization’s incoming president.

At awards ceremonies, it’s not uncommon for recipients to well up as they recall those who helped them earn their place at the podium. Installations of officers tend to be more stoic affairs, but there Ron Onesti was, fighting back tears as he accepted the presidency of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans at a Jan. 24 meeting at Club Arcada in St. Charles.

“At that moment, it came full circle to me just how much the JCCIA has affected my life’s journey,” Onesti explains. “My love for my heritage, my involvement in the community, and many of my personal and professional choices have come from my years with the JCCIA.”

It all began when a young man looking to make an extra buck walked into the JCCIA office on Michigan Avenue in the early ’70s and encountered Marie Palello. The organization’s longtime executive secretary pointed Onesti in the direction of the city’s Office of Special Events, which was starting an Italian fest in the Far Northwest Side neighborhood where Onesti grew up.

“There I was selling frozen bananas, and Tony Bennett was on stage!” he recalls with a laugh. “I joined the JCCIA’s Young Adults Division, and one thing led to another.”

Onesti spent 10 years as president of the Young Adults Division, hosting parties that attracted hundreds, launching the St. Joseph Table at Villa Scalabrini, writing a column for Fra Noi, inaugurating an awards ceremony for the Italo American National Union and serving as a marshal for the Columbus Day Parade.

“I met my wife while I was an escort at the Queen Contest, and we got married on a float during the parade,” Onesti says. “I remember meetings of the parent organization at the Como Inn with all the heavy hitters at the dais. It was so impressive.”

With those early experiences as a springboard, Onesti plunged into the fast-paced world of special events. He first lent a hand at Amerital UNICO’s lakefront Festa Italiana, and then created and produced Italian summer fests of his own on Oakley Avenue and Taylor Street as well as in Addison.

He formed Onesti Entertainment Corp. in 2005 with his brother Rich as second in command, eventually opening five venues across the Chicago area, including the Arcada Theatre, where the JCCIA election was held.

Over the decades, Onesti has donated untold hours, dollars, and resources to the JCCIA as well as other organizations and institutions in the community. His generosity and passion have been hailed by the Italian government, Ellis Island Honors Society and half a dozen other local organizations. He currently serves as president of the National Italian Sports Hall of Fame and as a board member at Casa Italia and the Italian American Veterans Museum. All of that has flowed from one place.

“The JCCIA took me down the road of Italian festivals, Italian food and Italian entertainment. I have my wife and my daughter, my close working relationship with my brother and all the other fruits of my professional labors because of the JCCIA,” Onesti reflects. “Now it’s time for me to give back in a big way.”

Big? Onesti’s plans for his two-year term are nothing short of monumental, with maximizing community involvement at the top of the list.

“The JCCIA is a congress of Italian-American organizations,” Onesti says. “My goal is to gather every local group under the JCCIA umbrella, and to sign up as many individuals and business members as we can.”

And the time to do that is now, he asserts. “The main takeaway from the current Columbus controversy is that there isn’t a button we can press to mobilize the community in a crisis to get 10,000 signatures, 5,000 letters, 2,000 marchers,” he notes. “We have the tool in place with the JCCIA, but we don’t have the mechanisms and we don’t have the numbers. There’s a lot to do and very little time to do it.”

Among his many other goals are:

• fostering greater communication within the Italian-American community;
• better informing non-Italian Americans of our community’s events;
• energizing and engaging younger generations of Italian Americans;
• promoting the teaching of the Italian language;
• dramatically expanding public expressions of pride during Italian Heritage Month and throughout the year;
• shoring up community assets like Casa Italia, Our Lady of Pompeii, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Fra Noi, the Italian American Veterans Museum and the area’s Little Italys;
• hammering out and executing an effective pro-Columbus strategy;
• bringing national and international resources to bear on local needs and issues;
• and taking full advantage of digital media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the organization’s website.

Onesti has already assembled a team of committee chairs who have begun the nuts-and-bolts work of turning goals into strategies and action plans.

“This is far from a one-man job,” Onesti points out. “If we want the community to be strong, it has to be involved and invigorated. We now have people leading the charge in key areas who have the skills and passion to make things happen, and everybody’s really excited.”

Onesti has been everywhere at once during a whirlwind first couple of months in office.

Internally, he has ordered an audit of organization finances, assembled a legal team, sought input from presidents of dozens of organizations and introduced a weekly video newsletter.

“For nonprofits to thrive, they have to be run like a business,” Onesti assures. “All your elements have to be strong — legal, financial, promotional — and you have to have strong communication, both internal and external.”

Externally, Onesti has reached out to elected officials and other key decision makers on the city, county, state and national levels in pursuit of a positive outcome for Columbus’ beleaguered statues, parade and day. He’s also working with leaders of other ethnic groups to identify ways to support each other’s agendas.

“My business is 150 percent relationship based,” he explains. “To create success, you have to create relationships, especially in times of adversity.”

When his two-year term comes to an end, what would he like his legacy to be?

“I hope to build a stronger sense of camaraderie among our member organizations,” he says, “to see them working together more.”

But that’s just a means to an end.

“We have all these things that are wavering right now: our holidays, our festivals, our assets,” he notes. “If we all put our shoulders into it and tap into the passion we all have, we can be on the road to making these things more secure. We can be on the road to being recognized and respected the way other ethnic groups are. That would be the greatest legacy of all.”

To find out more about the JCCIA’s new leaders and their plans of attack, visit franoi.com/community.

The above appears in the April 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

In the hush of Holy Name Cathedral, with hundreds of Catholics in attendance, the former Fr. Bob Lombardo knelt before Cardinal Blase Cupich in a Nov. 13 ceremony to receive an anointing with oil, a ring, a miter and a staff. That day, amid many joyous congratulations, Lombardo became the first Italian American, and the first Franciscan, to be ordained a bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Bishop Lombardo’s arrival in Chicago 15 years earlier was much humbler. Fresh from working with the poorest of the poor in the Bronx, Honduras and Bolivia, Lombardo faced the task of rebuilding a parish from the ashes of one of Chicago’s greatest tragedies, one that devastated the Italian-American community in particular.

On Dec. 1, 1958, Lombardo was a toddler growing up in a large, loving Italian-American family in Stamford, a Connecticut town with a significant Italian population. On that same day in Chicago, a fire escalated into an inferno that destroyed Our Lady of Angels Catholic School. The fire killed 92 school children and three nuns, gripping the city in grief. Following the tragedy, the residents of the predominantly Italian-American parish moved away to escape the unspeakable loss, and both the West Humboldt Park neighborhood and the parish buildings fell into decline. Over the decades, new residents, besieged by poverty and the gangs who preyed on them, moved in.

This was the situation Lombardo, now 63, stepped into in 2005. Cardinal Francis George, who had never forgotten the parish and its tragedy, asked Lombardo to come to Chicago to restore it.

The buildings had deteriorated to an unusable condition, and fixing them up seemed nearly impossible. Lombardo enlisted volunteers, from fellow Notre Dame University alumni to former parishioners to skilled tradesmen. He created partnerships with nonprofits. Though he had already co-founded an order of Franciscans while in the Bronx, he founded yet another in Chicago, the Franciscans of the Eucharist.

Today, those Franciscans run a food pantry, community dinners, youth and senior programs, summer Bible camps, retreats, prayer and more out of the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels. They serve everyone from children to seniors in the lower-income neighborhood, which is made up largely of African-American and Hispanic-American residents. Lombardo speaks Spanish, which helps him communicate with neighbors and parishioners alike.

He will continue in a leadership role at the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels but will turn over daily operations to the Franciscans while he performs episcopal duties.

Lombardo’s duties as bishop of the archdiocese’s Vicariate 3 — a large swath of Chicago west of downtown — include overseeing its 52 churches, 25 Catholic schools and three Catholic hospitals. He’ll need to keep parishes functioning smoothly, be a spiritual leader, ensure the schools are serving their students, and make sure the priests, nuns and laity are taken care of. That’s in addition to visiting churches for occasions like first communions, confirmations and other special events.

When he got the phone call that he was to become a bishop, “My reaction was shock and then numb,” Lombardo says. “But I talked to Cardinal Cupich, and he said just trust in God. God will give you the strength and the grace. It’s God’s work. We have to do it with a generous spirit. It’s a gateway to understanding that I just have to say yes.”

That spirit of saying yes is also what led him to become a priest. As a student at Notre Dame, Lombardo was a residential advisor in his dorm when a student contracted spinal meningitis. Lombardo accompanied that student in the ambulance to the hospital, where the young man lost consciousness and later died.

“That experience, when everybody was getting ready to graduate, you stop and think, ‘What is life really about?’” Lombardo says. “Whenever people have, for lack of a better term, a powerful event in their lives, it shakes the roots a bit. As time goes on, things go back to ‘normal,’ but that thought never left, and I thought, ‘I really need to pursue this.’”

So after graduating in 1979 with a degree in accounting and working for about two years at Price Waterhouse, Lombardo began to explore priestly formation as a Franciscan Capuchin friar in 1980. He took final vows in 1986 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1990 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

“I’m grateful for the business background at Notre Dame and Price Waterhouse,” Lombardo says. “Those skills have been very valuable in the church. We’re taking care of parishes and institutions, and they all have budgets.”

Reflecting, he adds, “As you get older, you realize how God puts things in place for his purposes, but at the time, it might not make sense.”

He can distill his goals for the future very simply: “They’re two-fold: to grow in my relationship with the Lord and to help other people do the same.”

As he pursues those goals, he takes inspiration from the lives of the saints. “We have had many in our age,” he says, citing Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II as examples. While working in the Bronx, Lombardo met Mother Teresa because her order of nuns ran a shelter in the area, and the friars and nuns would help one another.

“When Mother would come into town, they would say, ‘Come over and say hello,’” Lombardo recalls.

Lombardo spent his youth immersed in family and faith. “On Sunday, we went to church. We went to the cemetery to visit dead relatives. … Then it was always visiting grandparents, great-grandparents.”

His mother’s family hails from Sassano in the province of Salerno in Campania, and his dad’s side comes from Santa Rosa in Calabria. With his grandparents each having more than 10 siblings, there were always lots of aunts and uncles to visit.

“You ate everywhere you went. It was family time, and even as I grew older, there were always people coming over. My immediate and extended family were always a ton of fun to be with,” Lombardo says.

Italianità lives on at the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels with an annual St. Joseph Table organized by Mary Ann Paolantonio and other volunteers with connections to the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish and Shrine in Melrose Park.

For anyone interested in volunteering, Lombardo says the mission’s website, missionola.com, lists needs, from professional skills to tutoring to helping with the food pantry.

“A lot of our people work in service industries, like in hotels, and our neighborhood has been crushed by COVID,” Lombardo says. “We have a huge number of people unemployed or underemployed, and we’ve tripled to quadrupled our outreach. At the same time, people have been extremely generous in helping out.”

The above appears in the March 2021 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

After years of living from project to project, Torrey DeVitto finally has a home base in one of Dick Wolf’s famously long-running series.

When the hit drama “Chicago Med” returns to NBC later this year, the doctors at the fictional Gaffney Chicago Medical Center will face off against the same coronavirus pandemic their real-life counterparts have been grappling with since March.

Actress Torrey DeVitto, who plays the brilliant emergency pediatrics specialist Dr. Natalie Manning, says the show won’t time jump or ignore current events. Instead, the crown jewel of executive producer Dick Wolf’s “One Chicago” franchise will embrace its creator’s ripped-from-the-headlines approach and lean into our socially distant, mask-wearing reality.

“We are really staying current, staying up with where everyone is in real life. [COVID-19] is a huge topic for our show,” DeVitto says. “That’s what I love with all the Dick Wolf shows. You get to see what’s happening in the world play out on TV in the drama.”

The show’s fifth season was cut short in mid-March, when it was halted due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Production for a November premiere was slated to resume in late September, complete with stringent health and safety protocols. But a positive test within the production team postponed shooting for two weeks, sending the cast and crew into a precautionary quarantine.

Speaking exclusively with Fra Noi from her New York home, DeVitto says producers allowed her to isolate outside of Chicago, where the show films. So she took an 11-hour car ride back east and plans to hop back in the car for the return trip when filming starts up again.

“It’s the beginning of everything, and people are trying to be extra cautious and careful, which I totally appreciate,” DeVitto says. “I can’t lie and say I don’t want to get back to work, but everyone’s health is the most important thing right now.”

For DeVitto, “Chicago Med” — which launched in 2015 and averages an impressive 11 million viewers weekly — offered a compelling leading role and a welcome showcase for her talents after two decades of perseverance and hard work in the industry. The road to success wasn’t always smooth, according to DeVitto, and there was plenty of disappointment and rejection along the way.

“If you want to have a career in this business, you have to feel left out a lot, flying out early from a Thanksgiving holiday break for a callback when you didn’t even get the part or missing a friend’s birthday party,” DeVitto says. “You have to make sacrifices, and you have to have a tough skin.”

Although she’s had prominent roles in big shows such as “The Vampire Diaries,” “Army Wives,” “Pretty Little Liars” and “One Tree Hill,” “Med’s” Dr. Manning has allowed DeVitto to finally build a character from the ground up as part of the core cast. Plus, the Dick Wolf imprimatur comes with career stability for actors. His shows famously run for years, and “Med” is no exception, getting a three-season renewal last year that will take the program into 2023. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, and DeVitto says she’s not taking it for granted.

“Once I booked the show, all my friends and my manager were like, ‘Be prepared. It’s a Dick Wolf show. You’ll be there forever. He knows TV, and his stuff just lasts,’” DeVitto says. “Every year, we get picked up, and I’m always like, ‘Wow!’ I never get tired of that feeling.”

Born on Long Island, New York, and later raised in Winter Park, Florida, DeVitto is third-generation Italian American on her father’s side, with her grandfather’s parents hailing from Naples and her grandmother’s parents from Sicily. Growing up, DeVitto fondly recalls big Italian dinners at her grandparents’ house on Sundays, where Grandma and Grandpa, both with different dialects, playfully argued about who was speaking true Italian. “It was cool to have that experience,” DeVitto says. “I’ve always wished and hoped that I could create that when I have kids one day, growing up in a big family like that.”

She was thrilled to be able to finally meet her extended family in Sicily last summer. “They all showed up at the airport,” she fondly recalls. “They can’t speak English, but we can speak through emotion and sign language. It was one of the best trips.”

In addition to deep Italian roots, DeVitto’s family also has some serious show business bona fides. Her father, Liberatori “Liberty” DeVitto, was the longtime recording and touring drummer for singer Billy Joel. During Joel’s “Storm Front” tour in the early 1990s, a young Torrey DeVitto took an interest in the band’s violinist. She began playing the instrument herself after her father, who performed in ear-shattering bands all his life, was assured she wouldn’t suffer any hearing loss from it. The younger DeVitto has performed on recordings for the likes of Stevie Nicks and Raphael Saadiq. Her musicianship has also been featured on “Chicago Med” as well as in the 2019 Hallmark Channel holiday film “Write Before Christmas,” in which she plays an old-school romantic with a penchant for the cello. She has starred in a total of four Christmas-themed productions, including two more for Hallmark — “Best Christmas Party Ever” (2014) and “The Real St. Nick” (2012) — as well as the 2007 independent film “Herber Holiday.”

DeVitto began modeling at age 15 but quickly realized the profession wasn’t for her. At the urging of a photographer, she took acting lessons to reduce her shyness on camera, and she quickly fell in love with the craft, dreaming of moving to Hollywood after high school. Still wondering if she could make a go of it as a professional musician, she turned to her father, who gave her some sage advice.

“My father is someone I have so much respect for,” DeVitto says. “He came into my room and said, ‘The only advice I could give you is to not try to be a jack of all trades. Just pick something and try to be the best at it.’ I thank him every day for that advice, and I took it with me when I went to LA.”

When she’s not memorizing scripts filled with medical jargon, which she likens to learning classical music pieces during her youth, DeVitto uses her cache to work for causes and organizations near and dear to her heart. They include ending animal cruelty and educating teens about sexual assault and consent. She also volunteered for more than a decade as a hospice worker and currently serves as an ambassador for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“Because of the platform acting has given me, I can really work hard for the causes that mean the most to me,” DeVitto says. “It makes me work extra hard so I can keep reaching people.”

The above appears in the December 2020 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.