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# 70 •OCTOBER 19 , 2015
States. This inaugural program would
eventually grow into dozens more
exchange opportunities as NIAF became the bridge between the two nations. With this same eye towards the
future, NIAF and FIERI Inc. sponsored
the first national youth conference for
Italian Americans in Washington, D.C.,
later that year.
As the 1980s came to a close, NIAF
evolved into not only the nation’s leading voice for Italian Americans, but
also saw its Annual Gala become one
of Washington, D.C.’s hottest tickets!
At the 1989 Gala Dinner, the great baseball legend Joe Di Maggio, an icon
to all Americans and an almost-mythological figure among his own community, opted to skip the first game of the
1989 World Series in his home city of
San Francisco to attend the NIAF Gala.
The Yankee Clipper observed “you
know NIAF is important to me when
an old broken-down center fielder leaves the first night of the World Series
to be here.”
Other honorees that evening included Valentino Garavani, Joseph Antonini, and Danny Aiello, continuing the
trend of major international figures
who were thrilled to receive recognition from the Foundation. The famed
auction house Christie’s agreed to
conduct the NIAF Auction that year.
be held for the 500th Anniversary of
Columbus discovering America. As
the community’s leading organization,
NIAF published a Columbus 1992 Resource Handbook, 62 pages of suggestions on media relations, program
ideas for schools, businesses and the
community and a historical overview
of the Columbus celebrations in the
United States.
In the summer of 1990, NIAF was named by the Department of State as
the private sector repository for donated funds to help restore and renovate Villa Taverna, the home of the American Ambassador in Rome—the first in
a long string of public-private partnerships in which NIAF would become
the government’s official partner in an
effort to muster the Italian American
community.
In 1992, following up on a successful
mission to meet the leadership of the
Italian community in Argentina three
years earlier, NIAF lead a trip to Australia and New Zealand to further its
goal of helping Italian Americans get
to know Italian populations in other
countries. To this day, NIAF is seen as
a leader and successful model to Italian communities on every continent.
NIAF leadership continues to undertake these types of missions to aid in the
establishment of new organizations
like our own in these far o¢ locales.
As the 1990s opened, all eyes in the
Italian American community began In what would become the first of
looking toward 1992 and the Quin- another long-standing NIAF tradition,
centennial celebrations that would 1994 saw the inaugural Sergio FranWE THE ITALIANS | 31
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