A truly spec­tac­u­lar gala has been planned this year by The Cen­ter for Ital­ian & Italian-American Cul­ture of Cedar Grove, NJ.  Every year it is a much antic­i­pated event. This black tie affair will take place on Fri­day, Novem­ber 9th at The Villa, Rte. 46 East, Moun­tain Lakes, NJ.  The ele­gant evening begins with a cock­tail hour, start­ing at 7:00 pm, fol­lowed by a gourmet din­ner and won­der­ful entertainment.

Each year we cel­e­brate our Ital­ian her­itage by hon­or­ing accom­plished indi­vid­u­als in  their var­i­ous fields.  This is a mem­o­rable and excit­ing evening for hon­orees to share with their fam­ily, friends and busi­ness colleagues.

This year’s hon­oree for the “Man of the Year” is Sal Palmeri who is the founder of ICN  (Ital­ian Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Net­work) Radio, with a suc­cess­ful career that has spanned the last 45 years. He has been active in var­i­ous artis­tic fields, work­ing as an announcer, host, actor, DJ, and pro­ducer. His radio pro­grams were broad­cast by WHBI/fm, WBNX/am, WHOM/fm, WPOW/fm, WNWK/fm, WDAS/fm, and WIFI/fm. Thanks to the work of Mr. Palmeri, ICN Radio has become an impor­tant way to unite the Ital­ian Com­mu­nity, and help pre­serve the lan­guage, her­itage and culture.

The “Woman of the Year” hon­oree is Marina C. Perna, Esq. an attor­ney prac­tic­ing law in Nut­ley, NJ since 1991. She has been priv­i­leged to rep­re­sent and assist hun­dreds of Ital­ian immi­grants with var­i­ous legal and non-legal needs. In 1990, Ms. Perna was elected the first woman mayor of Belleville, NJ and sub­se­quently served three terms. Ms. Perna is hum­bled to serve the Apos­tolic Nun­cio, His Excel­lency Arch­bishop Fran­cis Chul­likatt as advi­sor to the Holy See at the United Nations begin­ning July 2012.

The award for “ Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to the Ital­ian Com­mu­nity” goes to Gruppo Edi­to­ri­ale Oggi  which com­prises ICN Radio and Amer­ica Oggi. ICN Radio is the only 24 hour a day, seven day a week Ital­ian radio sta­tion in the tri-state area with over 230,000 lis­ten­ers daily. Amer­ica Oggi is the only daily Ital­ian lan­guage news­pa­per pub­lished in the United States. The news­pa­per pro­vides read­ers with news and infor­ma­tion about Ital­ian com­mu­ni­ties on both national and local levels.

For reser­va­tions, ads or spon­sor­ship, con­tact CIIAC at 973–571-1995 or email us at info@ciiac.org!