Last year, 50 people attended this wonderful Zoom event. This year the Hunterdon County Chapter invites all the Chapters in Filitalia including those in Italy to join us Sunday February 20 on Zoom at 2 pm EST. RSVP here. Italia) for a musical performance A Valentine Serenade from an extraordinary Italian American woman a member of our Chapter here in New Jersey, Dr. Mary Rorro with commentary from the Honorable Gilda Baldassari

Introduction: Avvocato Janis Morelli, President Filitalia Hunterdon County Chapter; Prof. Vittorio Vettori, Vice President. Dr. Mary C. Rorro, a psychiatrist and former Chief Resident of the Year at Harvard Medical School and fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital will sing the Filitalia International Anthem which she has composed, and will serenade us with the “viola” over the duration of the program.

Her recent performances were as a vocal soloist at the Princeton University Chapel for Veterans Day and viola soloist at the Investiture Mass for the Royal Order of the House of Savoy, at Saint Jean Baptiste Church in New York City. Needless to say, Dr. Mary Rorro is a proud member of our Filitalia Chapter.

Cavaliere Dr. Gilda Rorro Baldassari, Honorary Vice Consul for Italy in Trenton, Emerita, Chairperson of the New Jersey Italian Heritage Commission, Emerita (NJIHC), and a member of our Filitalia Hunterdon Chapter, will introduce a newly published volume produced by the Italian Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, His Excellency, Andrea Canepari. This beautifully illustrated work is titled: The Italian Legacy in Philadelphia: History, Culture, People, and Ideas. She will present a brief piece she wrote in it titled: From Southern Italy to Southern New Jersey. In it, she lovingly recounts the Italian immigrant experience in that bucolic region of the state.
Creating the book for Ambassador Canepari was also a labor of love for the City of Brotherly Love, where he lived while serving as Consul General of Italy. He received an invitation to give a personal greeting to members of Filitalia. We are pleased that Ambassador Canepari will prepare a video for this program since he will be travelling at that time and cannot participate ‘live’ on Zoom. His Excellency is interested in appearing on another Filitalia event.

Dr. Rorro is Project Director for the new NJIHC video series: AN ITALIAN'S DREAM: Leads to the Origin of the Hispanic People and Beyond. She will showcase an infomercial on this additional "labor of love," which highlights the status of the Trenton statue of Christopher Columbus, and facts about the global effects of the extraordinary legacy of the iconic navigator-past and present.