Hot Italian Part Of Sacramento Outreach For Italy Earthquake Victims

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) —  Hot Italian, a restaurant in Midtown Sacramento, hosted a fundraiser on Wednesday to help victims of the earthquake that hit Italy earlier in the morning.

One woman CBS13 spoke with has friends in the devastated areas who she has not been able to get a hold of.

"Maybe she's not by her phone, maybe she turned it off, or worse," said Patrizia Cinquini-Cerutti, the director of the Italian Cultural Society.

It's tough for Cinquini-Cerruti not to think of the worst when she can't get a response from her friends in Norcia, Italy, one of the towns devastated by the earthquake early Wednesday morning.

"Officials from the country are saying please remove all Wi-fi passwords so if someone is stuck, they can call for help," Cinquini-Cerutti added.

But for the people Cinquini-Cerruti did get a hold of, "I have professors and teachers I reached in Perugia and they tell me they are so afraid of the tremors and the aftershocks because they can knock down stones from the buildings."

Cinquini-Cerruti was born and raised in Italy, and says like California, earthquakes are a part of life.
She says what makes earthquakes like the one on Wednesday especially worrisome is the historic architecture of the buildings.

"These are very old villages and that's what made this so devastating; none of the buildings are reinforced," Cinquini-Cerutti added.

"It's tragic and you wanna help."

Andrea Lepore co-owns Hot Italian in Midtown Sacramento.

Both she and her business partner have family living around central Italy, where the earthquake hit.

In an effort to reach out to their native homeland, all three Hot Italian restaurants in Northern California hosted a fundraiser all day Wednesday to help victims of the tragedy.

Lepore said "when something so destructive hits your country, and devastates a place that you are so closely connected to, it's very important for us to help."

One-hundred percent of the net proceeds made at all three Hot Italian locations on Wednesday will go to benefit the Italian Red Cross.

Cinquini-Cerutti says she's flying out to Italy next week to be with her ill father, and she plans to check on her friends in the areas hit by the earthquake.