Jack Spatola said that he first got the idea to offer free legal services to the Italian-American community when speaking with a rabbi in 1983. Nearly 40 years later, Spatola is finally getting to realize that dream.

Spatola is the president of the Federation of Italian-American Organizations, which operates Il Centro, an Italian-American cultural center located on 18th Avenue. While the neighborhood has undergone drastic changes in recent decades, Spatola hasn’t changed much from 1983 in that he’s always looking for ways to help ItalianAmericans and for ways to improve his community.