By Lina Astarita
On Monday evening, June 9th, over 150 family members, friends, and teachers gathered in the Eastchester High School cafeteria to honor high school and middle school students from the Eastchester and Tuckahoe schools, along with a student from Ursuline High School and another from Sacred Heart High School, at the Giuseppe Garibaldi Lodge’s Annual Scholarship Ceremony.
During the event, over $22,000 worth of scholarship money was awarded to deserving students for their excellence in Italian. Senior Nicolo Tortorella from Tuckahoe High School was the winner of the $10,000 scholarship from the Raffiani Family Foundation, while twelve others received monetary awards for their achievements.
For the second year, the scholarship committee decided to honor and reward 19 additional students from both the middle and high schools who were medal winners in the rigorous AATI’s 2025 Italian National Exam. Lina Astarita and Terri Tomany, the Scholarship Co-Chairs, acknowledged the merit of these awards. “The exam is taken by over 20,000 students in the U.S. and Canada. To receive a Medal of Honor is quite a distinction.”
Pictured: Laura Raffiani, Ms. DeAngelis (Ret. Italian Teacher), Nicolo Tortorella, Ms. Vairo (Italian Teacher), Phil Raffiani
The president of the Lodge, Joe Catania, commented, “We are committed to continuing to reward students for their hard work and participation in the Italian language program. Over the past 15 years, we have awarded over $250,000. We are confident that we will continue awarding scholarships for years to come. This is our most prestigious event as we get to distribute funds generated by our fundraising efforts from all the year’s events.
