News

Meet the President of the Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association, Germán Rodriguez! Elected in 2021 and now serving his second year as president, many of you already know Germán from his 16+ years on the SPSCA Board doing work in our membership outreach, fundraising, De Poi and l'Universita per Stranieri scholarship committees, and the Sister-City market scheduled each fall in Perugia.

Germán retired in April 2021 from geriatric social work with Washington State, having done that for 25 years. He was born in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, and began studying Italian in college. He came to Seattle in 1983 and continued to take Italian lessons, and has overseen our La Tavola Italiana bi-monthly Italian conversation group for many years. He also studied at l'Universita per Stranieri on SPSCA scholarship in 2013, and claims to be one of the descendents of Christopher Columbus himself!

President Rodriguez looks forward to the future and our continued relationship and sister city-hood with Perugia, Italy, all thanks to our members' support. "The cultural enrichment between the two countries is what you get with donating [to our organization], the ability of getting to know people from all over the world. Having experienced Perugia, I've met and kept in touch with people and places I didn't even know were in existence. It really opens your mind. I give thanks to the organization," commented President Rodriguez.

We look forward to Germán's leadership and all that we have on the horizon, stay tuned!

It was a lovely day at Borracchini Farm over the weekend for our annual Membership picnic, thanks to all who attended! It was lovely weather, great food, and fantastic company. Thanks to SPSCA Board Member Susie for taking such fabulous photos at the event!

Seattle-Perugia Sister Cities Association was a proud participant in 2021 in the creation of The International Table; Recipes from the Seattle Sister Cities, a compilation of recipes from Seattle's 20 sister cities. In 2022, the Seattle Sister Cities Association (including the Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association) was honored to receive the prestigious 2022 Sister Cities International Innovation in Arts & Culture award for the Seattle Sister Cities cookbook! Per the recognition, "This award is in recognition of the work done by [our] organization in advancing the goals and mission of Sister Cities International."

SPSCA has some remaining The International Table; Recipes from the Seattle Sister Cities cookbooks available for purchase at Cookbook. Thank you to all of our members and supporters who have purchased a one for themselves, or as gifts!

We had a wonderful visit from our Perugia Delegation earlier this month: Giorgio Moretti from Antica Deruta ceramics, Professor Valerio De Cesaris and Valentina Seri from In. Relation Office at the University for Foreigners. We thank all of the people who helped plan the visit, and who assisted in greeting our visitors to make them feel at home. We appreciate, in no particular order, grazie mille a:

Casa Italiana, Il Punto, Italian Consulate for Washington, Gonzaga University, Club Alpino Italiano, Civita Institute, Pottery Northwest, Dante Alighieri Society, Italian Scholars & Scientists of ISNAF, Percorso Italiano, the University of Washington, the Italian Club of Seattle, the Megale Family, the Joudah family, the James family, Emanuele Bizzari and Caffe Umbria, our SPSCA Board, and many others

We were able to show our guests around to many places during the visit, including the University of Washington, Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square, Casa Italiana and Piazza Perugia at Julia Lee Park, and a tour of the Amazon Spheres to name a few. We very much look forward to more visits with our big 30th anniversary coming up next year!

Thank you to everyone who made this fundraiser successful on Saturday!! We thank our generous donor who provided the 100's of gorgeous Deruta ceramics and Umbrian linens. A big shout-out to Cindy Musto, former SPSCA President, and SPSCA Board member Debbie Lawson for all of the hard work planning this event. We also appreciate the dozens of volunteers who showed up to help. It was wonderful to see our members and new friends shopping the sale, we sold out of our ceramics halfway through! Grazie to Caffe Umbria for providing the delicious espress cart. All of the proceeds go toward our programming, including our artist exchange Migration Project and our educational scholarships to study abroad in Perugia, Italy. We very much look forward to seeing everyone at our next event!