The Silvio Laccetti Foundation has announced Francesco Pontoriero of Warren, NJ as a winner of its prestigious Garibaldi Award. Winners are chosen from among 14 North Jersey High Schools whose students excel in Italian Studies and who have advanced the Italian American legacy in their schools or communities. Francesco is a junior honor student at The Delbarton School in Morristown.

For years, he has been active in school and community theater groups and currently has the lead in Delbarton’s version of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost

His essay was a superb exposition of Italian traditions and family values remarkably interwoven within themes of personal identity and contributions to American values. It has been published in several Italian American publications.