After serving on city council for decades and spearheading numerous community initiatives over the years, Ward 2 Councillor Ralph Cipolla was recently recognized with a Distinguished Citizen Award, in recognition of a lifetime spent working for the betterment of Orillia.
Issued by the Naos Culture Festival and Film Society (NCFFS), which fosters multiculturalism through diverse festivals and events, Cipolla was presented with the award at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto earlier this month.
Cipolla has served on council, on and off, since 1977, and he boasts an extensive resume of community service.
To name a few of his initiatives, Cipolla was the founder of the St. Bernard’s Breakfast Club, which became the model for breakfast clubs across the province, and he founded three popular local events: the Orillia Perch Festival, Jazz Festival and Leacock Wine Festival.
Cipolla served as chair of the committee that produced the city’s action plan for affordable housing; he has served as president of Elizabeth Overend Non-Profit Housing Orillia, and he helped bring Lakehead University’s Orillia campus to the community, among other initiatives.
Though he has previously been recognized for his work, through honours such as Orillia’s Citizen of the Year award, Cipolla said it is always meaningful to be recognized.
“I do it to make people's lives better, and it brings tears to my eyes when people recognize me like this because it's something my mom and my dad would have loved to be here to see,” he told OrilliaMatters.
He immigrated from Italy as a child, said he has always tried to give back to the community after experiencing how Orillia embraced his family as newcomers.
“The people of Orillia made me so welcomed that it just made me feel comfortable and made our family feel comfortable,” he said. “The people made me and my family feel comfortable, so I figured, as I got older, that I should do something to make Orillia a better place to live, work, and play.”
Cipolla was nominated for the award by Roger Nair, a career filmmaker who serves as vice-chair of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, who has also served on the executive committee of the Toronto Film Board.
Nair, who presented the awards May 3, said he met Cipolla in the late 2000s and was immediately impressed with the work he does to improve the community.
“You have to live as an outsider in Canada, I believe, to be able to appreciate what diverse groups need or go through, and I found him to be very passionate,” Nair told OrilliaMatters. “He's been very helpful to anybody that actually comes and sees him, and sometimes goes overboard, you know?”
Cipolla was one of 27 awardees, from across Ontario, who were recognized for their contributions to their communities.
“It was my privilege and my honour to be able to do that for these diverse candidates,” Nair said. “The people who got awarded there, it was a very distinguished group of people.”
The award comes with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pin, and it was given to volunteers and professionals who have excelled with community involvement, arts and culture, healthcare, and diversity, among other fields, in memory of Queen Elizabeth.
These days, as the pandemic subsides, Cipolla has turned his eye to addressing the opioid crisis.
Earlier this year, he gained council’s support to form an opioid crisis working group, with representatives from numerous local organizations, to make a plan to tackle the issue locally.
“I think that's going to be one of my most important things,” he said. “I hope that we can produce an action plan to prevent our children and our grandchildren from going into these opioids, into the fentanyl, and everything else that kills them.”
NCFFS was given the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Pins by the Monarchist League of Canada, and the awards were approved by Heritage Canada in June 2022.
