Arizona American Italian Club Community Involvement
The Arizona American Italian Club's mission is to be a resource to charitable organizations through the use of our facilities, to provide financial support to public charitable endeavors, and to heighten our membership's awareness of the importance of community involvement.
A Letter from our president...
The Arizona American Italian Club was incorporated in 1957, and for this almost fifty years, the goal and purpose of our non-profit fraternal organization was and still is to maintain the heritage of our proud roots. Our doors are open to anyone who would like to join, be they 100% Italian or not. Additionally, our doors are likewise open to assisting various charitable endeavors.
Our organization has made scholarships available every year for as long as any of our current members
could remember. The scholarships are for colleges, universities or trade schools and are available to those students who have demonstrated higher academic achievements, along with a need for financial
assistance. Scholarships are available to anyone, whether related to a member or not.
Knowing full well that our club must give back to the community, we have embraced a number of different charities, some of which are listed here:
- The Civitans: an organization whose goal is to aid mentally and physically challenged children and adults. Some of our own members are on the board of directors of the Civitans. In fact their board of directors use our facilities year long.
- Vista Colina: our ladies auxiliary, throughout the year, host fund-raisers to benefit the Vista Colina organization, whose main goal is to establish temporary housing, food, education and relatedassistance for entire families who have fallen on hard times.
- The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
- The Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
- The Arizona Humane Society Mobile Adoption Program.
- The Animal Benefit Club (A no kill shelter)
- Valley of the Sun Habilitation Center.
- We’ve sponsored fund raisers at the club for a number of national charities, such as Muscular Dystrophy.
- We host the joint Toys for Tots/Mike Klier’s Karate Dojo karate tournament with all toys going to the U.S. Marine sponsored Toys for Tots foundation.
- St. Mary’s Food Bank
- Various United States veteran’s organizations:
- Disabled American Veterans
- Operation Freedom Bird (all donations go to providing airline tickets for Vietnam veterans to visit the Washington D.C. wall memorial.)
- The Navy Family Support Staff.
- The Rotary club and the One to One Tutor (Kids are Stars)
- The 100 Club, which helps injured Phoenix Police Officers and Firefighters ands their families.
- The Arizona National Guard Retired Association.
In addition, our club has made available meeting rooms and hall space for many groups, some of which are listed here:
- The International Police Officers Association (IPA)
- The 1013 Club, which is a national organization of retired New York City Police Officers.
- The Roadrunner Schuetzenverein Club, which is a German social and competitive air rifle club.
- The Republican Club.
- The Democratic Club.
- Retired Delta Airlines employees.
- The Federal Law Enforcement Officer’s Association (FLEOA).
- Mountain Shadow Chapter (Arizona Bikers Association Towards Education).
- A Lithuanian Dance Troupe.
- The Teamsters local.
- A business networking organization.
- We’ve hosted annual Easter & Christmas parties for children & seniors.
As evidenced by the lists above, it is apparent that our club has stayed active in helping the community. If you have a favorite charity and would like to use our facilities, rent free, it will be our pleasure to help. We’ve had bingo at the club for well over 30 years, and as recently as of October 2003, the Arizona American Italian Club, was recognized by the Bingo Enterprise Management national magazine as the number one bingo hall in Arizona that contributes to different charities. We are additionally proud to say that throughout North America, our club was one of only 10 such bingo halls so recognized. We’ve been aggressive in helping the community, either locally or nationally, and are committed to continue in the same vein.
We’ve been in the valley for almost 50 years, and we’ve demonstrated over all that time that we have our community priorities in the right order. We help as much as we can under sometimes very strained economic times.
Thank you for your time, and I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Gene Rossi, President
Arizona American Italian Club