Frank Di Blasi: celebrating a lifetime of service

Frank Di Blasi is a man with a big heart and boundless energy, especially when it comes to serving members of the Italian community in Melbourne, and beyond. The 77-year-old, originally from Vizzini in the province of Catania, Sicily, has called Melbourne home for the past 60 years. In this time, he has accumulated a very long list of works and achievements that emphasise his love for and commitment to his local community, as well as his Italian heritage and culture. His ‘lifetime of service’ has been recognised with numerous awards over the years, including an Order of Australia Medal in 1984, a knighthood from the Italian Republic president Francesco Cossiga in 1986 and the Moonee Valley City Council’s Citizen of the Year in 2019. And while he’s enjoyed retirement for the past 10 years, he has no intention of stopping, or even slowing down.

Frank Di Blasi was 17 years old when he migrated to Australia from Sicily, travelling aboard the Italian Flotta Lauro ship, Roma, with his parents, Vito and Giovanna, and younger sisters Maria and Rose. They joined the eldest sibling, Giovanna, who had already married and settled in Werribee, in Melbourne’s southwest.

Four months after their arrival, Frank’s father was tragically killed in a road accident when a car hit him while riding his bicycle home in Werribee. He was only 49 years old. ‘Following my father’s death, I became the breadwinner of the family for many years, especially for my two younger sisters. Maria was 15 and Rosetta was 10 when we arrived,’ explains Frank.

My mother was in shock following my father’s death. Imagine, we came to Australia to better our lives and then this happened.

Frank spent a year working for an earth-moving company as a steam-cleaning operator, two years as a welder with two metal foundries and 10 years (1965–1975) with ICI Research Centre in Ascot Vale, part of the Australian-based, British-owned Imperial Chemical Industries. In the meantime, he’d commenced evening classes to complete his Higher School Certificate (HSC), which he completed over several years at Melbourne High School, Prahran Technical College and Brunswick High School.

The family had moved from Werribee to Moonee Ponds nine months after their arrival, making it ‘much easier’ for Frank to travel between home, work and school. It was also much more convenient when he started travelling to the city in the evenings to receive private tuition from two Age journalists, Patrick Tennyson and John Pinkney.

‘They taught me everything that was to be known in those months and months that I’d go into the city—I went every week,’ says Frank. He learnt so much in the field of journalism that he started contributing to his local paper, The Essendon Gazette, and was later employed by the Leader newspaper group as the ethnic affairs writer for eight of its 22 papers. In 1976, he won the National Wales Community Service Award for Suburban Newspapers for his weekly feature series, Life with the Second Settlers, with Leader newspapers, sharing stories about migrants from all over the world, but with a particular focus on local Italian stories. At the same time, Frank was contributing articles to Il Globo, an Italian bi-weekly newspaper based in Melbourne. He still regularly writes for Il Globo.

There are two stories, however, close to Frank’s heart, that emphasise his love for and involvement in his local community and his desire to serve and assist Italian migrants, particularly the elderly.

He explains that in the early 70s, the historic Essendon municipal offices and town hall, located on a large junction in Moonee Ponds, was set to be demolished to make way for a six-storey car park. Frank was part of a local group lobbying to save the building. On the morning demolition work was set to commence, he was in the local court with the late Rev. Bert Stevens, Chairman of the Essendon Community Group, seeking an injunction to prevent the demolition work from commencing. Successful, Frank ran from the courthouse, with injunction papers in hand, ‘screaming at the demolition workers to stop what they were doing’.

‘One of the bulldozers was already breaking down part of the building with a large swinging metal ball,’ he says. ‘It had already broken the first window by the time I ran up, with the injunction papers in my hands. The bulldozer was making its way to the main door. I was running and yelling at the bulldozer driver: “Stop! Stop what you’re doing! This is an injunction from the court ordering you to stop what you’re doing. All of you go home!”’

‘The building was saved, and it was turned into what is now one of the most beautiful entertainment centres in the northwest of Melbourne,’ says Frank, referring to what’s now known as the Clocktower Centre. However, before this, it was home to Victoria’s first Italian Senior Citizen’s Club, officially established on 18 March 1976, thanks to the initiative and commitment of Frank.

He’d been walking down Puckle Street, in Moonee Ponds, when he met a group of elderly Italians taking shelter from the rain under a café awning. Recognising Frank, one of them said, ‘You’re doing things for everyone but you’re not doing anything for us elderly people.’

Frank realised ‘in that moment’ that many of the Italian migrants who’d arrived in the 1940s and 50s were starting to retire and would have nowhere to gather and socialise.

There was nothing for elderly Italians in Melbourne at the time and I thought, ‘If my dad were alive today, he’d be one of these people who needed somewhere to gather socially, to meet others, and to live a better quality of life.’ There was no place to go, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ Given the centre had been saved already and there were lots of rooms available, we were able to have a room set aside especially for Italian elderly people in the area.

Though the room was originally established as a drop-in centre, it wasn’t long before Frank started organising lunches with musical entertainment, day trips on buses to regional centres every couple of months, and movie afternoons. As news of the club’s activities spread, so too did the places people came from—St Albans, Footscray, Werribee and Dandenong. ‘People came from everywhere,’ says Frank, ‘to the point that that club became the largest senior citizen club anywhere in Australia. We had 850 members.’

Since this time, Frank has established more than 90 senior citizens’ clubs in Mellbourne and Victoria, and has devoted his time, energy and resources to assisting elderly members of the Italian community. Over the years, he has initiated and worked on numerous committees, boards and initiatives that support the elderly, and has been employed by a number of organisations that provide services to the Italian community, including the Italian assistance association Co.As.It. ‘My life has been a progression of one thing after another,’ he says. ‘But ultimately, I consider myself a community advocate of the needs of the elderly people.’

Frank underwent a triple bypass operation four years ago, and retired 10 years ago, but this has done nothing to dampen his enthusiasm, spirit or energy. In fact, he’s busier now than before, dedicating 50 hours each week to his volunteer work in the community. He’s currently president of six different organisations and for the past 30 years has been involved with La Festa di San Gregorio Magno, a festival celebrating the patron saint of Vizzini. ‘My wife said to me, “If you go to another meeting and come back as president, I’m going to leave you”,’ he says, laughing.

And my children always ask me, “Dad, when are you really going to retire?” But I feel the more I’m doing, the more joy I get. It gives me great satisfaction—a deep internal joy—to do these things.

When asked where he gets all his energy from, Frank responds, ‘Non lo so. E‘ il Signore—I don’t know. God. I always think that God has helped me a lot. I feel I’ve been blessed to do these things here. And I feel blessed in the wife that I have—Nina. She understands me and supports me, and the things that I’ve done, 100 per cent. And my two children, Alessandro and Nadine, are the joy of my life.’

Frank says he is inspired to let younger people know ‘that by doing good work, you can do a lot of things—Australia could truly be the land of opportunities. I say to my children, “If you have a talent or skill, don’t just use them for money, do things pro bono, too. That’s the example I’ve been trying to set in the things that I’ve been doing.’

I also think, when you give things to other people, whether it’s anything at all, to help them, to care for them, to look after them, you get back so much joy within yourself. Questa è una bella cosa. This is a beautiful thing.