Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 7:00 pm. New Season's Market, 7703 SW Nyberg Street, Tualatin OR. Lucia Galizia will share her life's story with our group - a very interesting one! You won't want to miss Lucia first-hand!

Here's a little about Lucia: she came to the U.S. from Naples in the mid-1960s and has been a driving force behind the Italian community in Portland for most of those years. Because of her tireless volunteer efforts, she has been given the title, "La Matriarche di Portland" (The Godmother of Portland).

At the former ‘Festa Italiana Portland’ you would have seen Lucia front and center dancing to the myriad of performers who took the stage. Lucia inadvertently became part of the show. She could draw in a crowd with her charismatic personality, and Festa would not have been the same without her. She was an integral part of Festa since its inception in the early 1990s and retired as head of the Entertainment Committee in 2016.

Lucia also recently retired from another longheld position in the Italian community as host of ‘The Italian Hour’ radio show on KBOO Community Radio. She called it a labor of love and would either purchase the music herself to play on air or it was donated by others. Lucia feels that it is good for people to hear the music of their (native) country, and states that “people of nonItalian descent enjoy it too!”

Although she has stepped down from some of her long-standing positions, Lucia stays active in the Italian community by attending meetings and events and she continues to host dinners to raise funds for the Portland State University opera program.

And there's so much more to tell! Lucia's deep roots in Naples, her coming to America, and years of giving back to the Italian community.