The Annual Festa Luncheon sponsored by the Italian Club of Seattle will be held this year at the prestigious Seattle Yacht Club overlooking Portage Bay.
The date is Friday, September 11th, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM.
The Seattle Yacht Club offers us a beautiful dining room, delicious food, no-host bar and free parking, all for the reasonable price of $60 per person.
Tickets including lunch are $60.00 per person. For more details and to make reservations, call (206) 779-7325, send a check for $60 per person to:
Audrey Manzanares
Italian Club Festa Luncheon
1301 Spring Street
Apt. #8-D
Seattle, WA 98104
Or you may email her at: Audrey Manzanares <amanzanares@live.com> and pay using Venmo or Zelle®
We have reached out to several possible Keynote Speakers on both the national and the local scene. Rest assured, they will be well-informed and interesting to listen to on a topic of interest to our community.
The 2026 recipient of the Patricia DeLaurenti Volunteer of the Year Award is Joe Megale.
Joe Megale believes in service and community. He especially loves being a part of the local Italian community and is very proud of his Italian/Calabrese heritage. Joe has been a member of Seattle Fedele for about 15 years, even serving as President for a year during COVID. Joe is always willing to volunteer at anything Italian! Some examples include serving and cooking at various Italian dinners, helping at the Italian community picnic at Royal Arch Park, helping at Festa Italiana, and helping at the San Gennaro Festival every year.
Involvement in Casa Italiana – Joe actually was the person who found the building, is a founding board member and has served on the board since the beginning of Casa in 2020. Joe became the facilities manager for the building and property, donating many, many hours to the success of this project, from swinging a hammer to dealing with all of the permits through the City of Burien, to having a significant part in helping with the construction of the Desimone Hall on the second level of Casa. Up until last year, when Joe was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, he helped at all of the Casa events from setup to cleanup. Over the last several months, as Joe’s health has improved, he has been able to slowly get back involved in the Italian community and is looking forward to doing much more!
Joe Megale
This year’s recipient of the Gil Centioli Memorial Award is Therese Bianchi. A community leader and tireless volunteer, Therese is also a nationally recognized Realtor with Windermere West Metro in West Seattle.
Therese has been a committed participant in Seattle’s Italian-American community for decades. In the past she was a member of Seattle Fedele, The Italian Club of Seattle, and West Side Italian Civic Club. Therese is a founding board member of Casa Italiana – Italian Cultural Center, a role she continues to fulfill to this day. Her dedication to the community has been manifested in her volunteering, and her contributions to the Seattle Fedele Scholarship, Festa Italiana, San Gennaro, and her ongoing effort to support Casa through general volunteering, event production, and fundraising. Therese loves to help where she can and feels Casa is an opportunity to give back. An opportunity made that much better in that she shares it with her husband Joe Megale.
Speaking of family, Therese enjoys life! When she is not working, or volunteering at Casa, she loves to spend time with her family and friends. This includes her husband Joe, mother and father, four children: Nick, Katie, David, and Joseph, and especially her grandkids Brooks and Clara. Someone lucky enough to call Therese their friend or family will know of her joy for baking bread and sharing the results with those around her, growing roses, and walking.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this year’s recipient of the Gil Centioli Memorial Award, Therese Bianchi.
Therese Bianchi
Currently a managing broker at Windermere West Metro in West Seattle, Therese has been a broker for nearly 20 years. Her earlier years were spent at Keller Williams & John L Scott, with the past 8 years at Windermere. Therese works with buyers and sellers, typically focused on the area from SODO to Burien, she will go where the business takes her Everett, Tacoma, Issaquah, and beyond.
Having sold hundreds of properties, Therese has worked extremely hard to build her name and reputation in Seattle’s competitive real estate industry. Early in her real estate career Therese learned that real estate is a great demonstration of the survival of the fittest. She believes wholeheartedly that the agent that works the hardest and most persistent, never giving up, will be the agent that continues to prevail and excel in the industry. Therese views open houses as a primary activity she uses to build her business and is determined to produce the best open houses. A large portion of Therese’s business today has grown from the people she has connected with at her open houses. Therese finds fulfillment in work as she helps people Clients and Colleagues alike to buy and sell property. Her passion, dedication, and hard work are reflected in her client review comments in Google where she is often noted as: hard working, extremely helpful, boundless energy, quick to respond, knowledgeable, a rockstar, professional, and invaluable.
Lucy Salle
This year’s Gill Centioli Award winner is communal matriarch and tireless volunteer Lucy Salle. Over the years, she has held office in just about every organization including the Seattle-Fidele Lodge of the Sons & Daughters of Italy in America and the West Side Civic Italian Club. Lucy is also a nationally recognized artist working with jewelry and found objects to create colorful images in 3D.
The 2025 recipient of the Patricia DeLaurenti Volunteer of the Year Award is Steve Fontana who is always available to volunteer for any event sponsored by the Italian Club, the Seattle-Fidele Lodge and just about any worthwhile cause.
© 2026 Festa Italiana Seattle. All Rights Reserved. "Taste of Italy" is a registered trademark of Festa Italiana, Inc.
For the past several years, Domenico Minotti has prepared a quiz for Festa Italiana, an annual celebration of Italian culture, food and music held each year at the Seattle Center at the end of September. Since this year’s Festa Italiana will be virtual, Domenico has prepared a virtual quiz to go along with that. The quiz was premiered September 9th 2020 at the Dante Alighieri Society’s English Language meeting held virtually on Zoom. Links to PDFs of the quiz and the answer key along with the presentation are available below.
In the late 1920s, Nick’s parents emigrated from Sant’Angelo, Limosano, a small hilltop town in Molise. The population at that time was about 1000 but is now 345 as Nick learned on a visit last year. The family spoke their dialect at home. Nick studied Italian at Columbia University and Perugia and got lots of practice while on Fulbright study grants in Milan in the mid 60’s. Nick returned to the states and to his first love, medicine, at Georgetown University and came to Seattle in 1976 to work at the US Public Health Hospital on Beacon Hill, better known as the Marine Hospital. He and his father Pasquale would attend Dante meetings back then but took a break until retirement a few years ago. Nick serves as a Consigliere for our Dante group.
A special memorial collection of works has been added to “Le Arti della Festa Italiana” Art Exhibit at the Italian Festival this year in honor of Roberto Mario Tacchi whose elegant woodcarvings adorn Seattle public spaces and personal collections and who passed away May 15, 2019 at the age of 80. Born in Florence Italy, Roberto learned his craft from his father, becoming the seventh generation of woodcarvers in the Tacchi family.
As opposed to his large public works, this collection will be of “chamber pieces” that he carved primarily for family, friends and private collectors. They will be on display in the Armory on Saturday and Sunday, September 28 & 29, 2019 from 10 AM – 5 PM each day. Admission is free. Patrons of the “Taste of Italy” Wine Tasting on Friday night, September 27th will also be able to view the collection.
His public works present in the Seattle area include the exterior doors of the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Seattle, the chapel at Providence Marianwood in Issaquah and a memorial display in the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Surely even more treasured are the frames, sea shells and other carvings found in the homes of the many people who sought out his work for its elegance and sensuous beauty. When the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington obtained the loan of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting in 1982, they commissioned Roberto to carve a Late Gothic altar and triptych in order to properly display this revered work.
