Davedi Club celebrates 55 years

Giovanni Cinanni, Event Co-ordinator for The Davedi Club, stands beside a map of Italy.


Members of the Davedi Club gathered Saturday night to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the clubs origin.

The Davedi Club was organised in 1952 by a small group of men that were of Italian descent. Their main concern was the preservation of Italian culture and heritage in Canada.

Over a hundred people gathered to honour the founding members as well as the men and women (Ladies Auxiliary) who support the club.

“It feels very important to preserve the Italian community’s heritage and culture,” Hub Fedeli, 50 Year Member and Former Club President, said while reminiscing about “the early days”.

“That’s why we see so many volunteers helping out when we have certain events,” he added.

The purpose of the club was to socialise and learn more about fellow citizens. The members encouraged each other to take a lively interest in community affairs especially those pertaining to education, music and sports. This was how the name of the Davedi Club was founded. Take the first two letters from Dante, the poet representing education, Verdi, the composer representing music and Di Maggio, the famous baseball star representing sports, and you get Davedi.

Now, 55 years later, club members want to bring back their culture and heritage by building a learning centre in the club. Members and non-members will be welcome.

“We are going to have a room full of books and videos so people can learn about the culture of Italy,” Giovanni Cinanni, Event Organiser for the Club, said.

According to Fedeli, in addition to the learning centre, the club wants to bring in a cooking course to teach people different Italian dishes as well as an Italian language course.

“We are looking into getting some help from FedNor or the Ontario Trillium Fund so we can start getting these things off the ground,” Fedeli said.

Cinanni explained that there are around 150 members in the Davedi Club along with a number of Ladies Auxiliary members. Cinanni says that the club started out very big but is slowing growing smaller due to the lack of new members.

“I would like to see more members come here. It is my dream to see young people come and support this and take over,” Cinanni said with a smile.