President’s Message

Caro Amici,

Thank you for visiting our Italian-American Club of West Michigan website. Our Club exists to promote Italian culture and heritage in West Michigan and is open to anyone who loves and appreciates Italian food, culture, language, and heritage, regardless of ethnicity.  

I hope that you will take a few minutes to read the “Local Italian Culture” page on this website. It describes a rich Italian history and tradition in Grand Rapids that many believe no longer exists. 

It is true that many of the places and neighborhoods described in that history are either gone or dramatically changed now. Our Lady of Sorrows Church and the Italian neighborhood that surrounded it are no longer predominantly Italian; and the Baldacchino, which was the centerpiece of Our Lady of Sorrows’ annual festival and processional ceremony is now a museum exhibit on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. 

Fortunately, the memories of our childhoods and the parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who taught us the old ways are not gone; they still live within us. We, who remember them, have an obligation to share that history with our children and grandchildren. The old neighborhoods may be gone, but Italians and all their memories are still here and in great numbers.

We want to rebuild a community to share memories and traditions and to introduce our children and grandchildren to the stories and ways of the past. One of the sources of my greatest joys is to see my children get so excited about making gnocchi, and my daughter by marriage, who has no Italian blood, so delight in the sugo of my youth, that she drinks it all by itself from a cup. This is how the spirit of past generations lives on.

We cannot bring back the people or the places of the past, but we can preserve and delight in their memory and we can show others how to do the things they taught us to do.

That is my vision for the Italian-American Club of West Michigan  – to bring the memories we carry inside us to life again and I hope that you will want to join us and add your own memories and energy to help accomplish that goal.

Spero di vederti presto ( I hope to see you soon).

Jim DeLauro