Longtime Kelowna volunteer mourned
Joe Iafrancesco dies after making $200,000 donation to KGH Foundation
In his long and wide-ranging involvement with the Kelowna Canadian Italian Club, Joe Iafrancesco organized countless fundraisers, banquets and charity events.
To ensure the success of one gala, Iafrancesco — who has died at age 71 — had to bump up against the bureaucracy of the Canada Border Services Agency.
“Joe was very nice but also a determined individual,” Emilio Nanci, a past president of the club, said Tuesday. “When he made his mind up to do something, it got done.”
Iafrancesco is being remembered by the 250 members of the club as someone who was passionate about preserving the Italian language and culture in Canada, but also as a proud and active citizen of his adopted country.
“We’re all very shaken by Joe’s passing,” said Janet Gagnon, another club member. “He was active in everything the club has done for many years but also in a lot of other Kelowna organizations as well.”
Iafrancesco’s family moved to Canada from Italy in 1963, and he worked for 30 years with the Canadian Pacific Railway as a brakeman-conductor.
He was president of the Kelowna Canadian Italian Club several times, and also was active with Folkfest, Rotary, the Knights of Columbus, Crime Stoppers and the Lions Club. Less than one per cent of Kelowna residents list Italian as a mother tongue, but the community has been energetic about various fundraising causes. In 2009, for example, it raised $21,000 to send to an Italian town devastated by an earthquake.
In 2011, the club arranged for Italian chef Enrico Faccenda to come to Kelowna to host a fundraiser called A Taste of Italy. But Faccenda was stopped by CBSA agents at Calgary’s airport, accused of trying to enter the country illegally and sent home.
Iafrancesco immediately took up the cause, helped get the issue resolved, and Faccenda came to Kelowna just a few days later.
“We’re so grateful to Enrico that he agreed to come all the way back just a couple days after customs sent him packing,” Iafrancesco said at the time, adding with characteristic humour: “Italians are known for being kind of hot-headed, and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d been pretty angry and said forget about it.”
Iafrancesco is survived by his wife Bianca. Before he died last Friday, Iafrancesco made a gift of $200,000 to the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation.