{"id":78395,"date":"2025-12-22T20:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T20:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78395\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T20:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T20:39:15","slug":"italian-club-of-staten-island-hosts-holiday-gathering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78395\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian Club of Staten Island hosts holiday gathering"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation hosted its annual Christmas party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. The holiday soiree saw more than 150 revelers while raising funds at the Huguenot banquet venue.<\/p>\n

\"ItalianAnthony Ottombriano, Dr. Vincent DeGennaro and Louis Barbera.\u00a0(Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

Kicking off the holiday event was the quick-witted WCBS-FM 101.1 deejay Joe Causi, a member of the Italian Club, who assumed the role of master of ceremonies and opened the program with Joseph Santigate, chairman of the Christmas party.<\/p>\n

\"ItalianCarmine Manna, center, vice president, and members of\u00a0Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation.\u00a0(Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

The event, where martinis flowed and Italian specialties were plentiful, translates into one of the Italian Club\u2019s major fundraisers.<\/p>\n

\"ItalianFrom the left, Josephine Genovese, Anthony Maniscalco, and Lucille Causi. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

Proceeds support its good works that include presenting college scholarships to deserving high school seniors, as well as contributions to local charities.<\/p>\n

\"ItalianMembers of The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation Inc. at its annual Christmas party. From the left, Councilmember Frank Morano, Frank Fontaino, Johnny Potenza and William Marco. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

Throughout the course of the evening, checks were donated to several representatives of non-profit organizations including the Staten Island University Hospital Pediatric Care Unit, St. Edward\u2019s Pantry, Catholic Charities, and Parkside Land Development Corp (LDC).<\/p>\n

\"ItalianGreg Magras, left, and Joseph Zichittella, right, of the Italian Club, donate a check to Diane Irvine, Allison Pinar, and Janine DiMonda, of the Staten Island University Hospital Pediatric Care Unit. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianGreg Magras, left and Joseph Zichittella, present a check to Margaret Moschetto of St. St. Edward’s Pantry. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianFrom the left, Greg Magras presents a check to Claire Atalla and Anthony Cerverizzo of Catholic Charities. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianGreg Magras, Kathleen Bielsa, of the Parkside Land Development Corp (LDC) and Joseph Zichittella. Bielsa was the recipient of a check from the Italian Club for her organization. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

\u201cIn June, we held our Diamond Jubilee Gala, marking 75 years of philanthropy, and today we are celebrating our 75th Christmas party,\u201d said Joseph Zichittella, president of the organization. \u201cI am honored to be the president of this fantastic organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ItalianJoseph Zichittella, president of the Italiain Club, center and members of the club..(Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianAt The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation’s annual Christmas party at the Grand Oaks Country Club\u00a0are from the left, Joe Santigate, chairman, Carmine Manna, vice president, Joseph Zichittella, president, Greg Magras, cochair, Harold Verde, committee member, and Joe Causi, master of ceremonies. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianOlivia Manna (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianLucille and Joe Causi, at The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation’s annual Christmas Party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

He went on to recognize \u201cOur master of ceremonies, Joe Causi, singer Olivia Manna, singer Victoria Amodeo, singer Vinnie Medugno, singer Charlie Romo, the ICOSIF committee chairmen and their teams, the Board of Directors, the Executive Board, lifetime directors, and members.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ItalianVictoria Amodeo,\u00a0The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation Inc.held it’s annual Christmas Party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianLenore and Al Lambert at The\u00a0Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation’s annual Christmas party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously, we awarded $8,000 in scholarships,\u201d Zichittella reported. \u201cIn April, we awarded $21,500 to students of Italian lineage. Thanks to our chairman, Rob Marraccino, and his team for a successful event.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian Club just completed its annual food drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarc Tranchina and his team did an excellent job ordering the food, contacting the recipients, delivering the food, packing the food, and organizing delivery to 27 food banks. Several brothers offered their company trucks to help give 1,000 bags of food to various Food Banks. We had approximately 50 volunteers from the club and family members to help. And tonight, our chairman, Joe Santigate, and his team planned the entire Christmas party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian Club has inducted 40 new members and 10 in the pipeline for next month, Zichittella continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 40 members under 40. So, this growth is the future of our club. Our membership chairman, Anthony Maniscalco, and his team have been working nonstop to review and approve all members. In closing, I want to thank Marc Tranchina and his staff for offering a separate room for our cocktail hour and giving us \u2018an offer we couldn\u2019t refuse.\u2019 Marc also contributed to our gala and golf outing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ItalianMembers of the Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation at its Christmas Party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianMembers of the\u00a0 Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation at its annual Christmas Party at the Grand Oaks Country Club. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White\"ItalianMembers of the Italian Club and their wives and friends at the organization’s Christmas Party. (Steve White for the Advance\/SILive.com)Steve White<\/p>\n

A LITTLE ABOUT THE ITALIAN CLUB OF STATEN ISLAND FOUNDATION<\/p>\n

The Italian Club of Staten Island was founded in 1950 by eight Italian-Americans who not only sought to raise awareness and promote Italian culture, but to raise funds for charitable, philanthropic and educational organizations. <\/p>\n

The club has sponsored youth, educational and cultural programs, which have included communion breakfasts, high school mentoring programs, and the recognition of excellence in Italian language study. Most recently, their commitment has been to the Aurora program that teaches Italian culture and Italian language to children in grammar school.<\/p>\n

From the original eight, the membership has grown to 150 plus \u2014 and over the course of the years well over 1,000 Italian Americans were on the membership roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The Italian Club of Staten Island Foundation hosted its annual Christmas party at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-78395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}