Both sets of grandparents came to Canada from post-WW2 Italy with literally nothing materially, but everything intact about family and community helping each other. Like many Italian immigrants who arrived shocked at the harsh winters, not speaking English and looking for work, they survived in one-family-to-a-room rented basements. Many remember finding home-away-from-home comfort at the Italian Centre Shop in the heart of Little Italy, where founder, Frank Spinelli gave credit and lived by the motto, “Eat today, pay when you can.”

Vanessa’s Nonna, Eleonora then twenty-two, landed at City airport in 1963, presenting her one-year-old daughter Assunta, (Vanessa's aunt) to her father Ettore for the first time. He’d left Italy just a month after their wedding. “I cried my first two years here, I missed my home so much,” muses Eleonora in heavily accented English, “And I didn’t see my husband much, we were always working.”

While Ettore worked construction on Edmonton landmarks like Northlands Coliseum, Enbridge Tower and College Plaza, both Vanessa’s Nonnas were seamstresses; Eleonora at White Stag and Teresa for the famous Great Western Garments making Levi Strauss jeans…a twenty-five-year career of piece work.

The idea to make gelato and sell it at summer festivals came after a holiday to Italy where there’s a store on every corner and going out for one is a way of family life. Armed with an authentic Italian recipe, Vanessa’s parents set up Fantasia with her uncle Domenico and Aunt Assunta (that babe in arms). Talk about a family business! They lived beside each other and the cousins, a boy and a girl in each family, grew up without a fence between the two houses, more like brothers and sisters.

“I just felt so lucky as a kid in this big family,” recalls Vanessa, “We all WANTED to work all summer! As soon as we were old enough. I ate as much gelato as I liked and grew up part of ALL the festivals.”

Like the generations before her, really hard work is in her blood. Vanessa helps her mamma with marketing for Fantasia and still serves at events where she now hires all the crews, (including Edmonton Child Magazine’s Free Family Picnic in the Park, July 16^th at the Kinsmen, alongside the Italian Centre Shop).

Vanessa is also studying for her law degree at the U of A. Clearly, the law in her family is the rule of goodness and pride in each other. “My dad has a crazy work ethic,” she smiles at him, “He’s so busy, yet he still surprises me by doing all sorts of little caring things, like washing my car and filling up the washer fluid!”

“I’m so proud to have Italian roots, to have visited where my grandparents were born and to have learned Italian at school,” Vanessa replies when asked if she considers herself Canadian or Italian. Filled with her family’s entrepreneurial spirit and strong sense of community service this talented young lady, is set to go a long way.

“She has my blessing,” smiles Nonna Elinora, proud of her children’s business and all her grandchildren who now have blossoming careers in HR, engineering, and banking.

James & his daughter Vanessa Fiorillo. He surprises her with random acts of kindness.