VOA常速英语:意大利移民美梦成真

“Twenty years ago, I started to making gelato, because gelato is something make you feel happy.”

Gianluigi Dellaccio came to America with a sweet tooth, a scooter and a dream.

When I was 6 years old, I had this accident, and the accident, it put me in a position that I had to go swim to help my scoliosis.

A water polo coach noticed him and a little more than a decade later he scored this——game-winning goal in a junior national championship on his way to join the Italy’s national team.

All the strength, all the dedication that I put in the sport I choose to invest it in my own life.

The investment put Dellaccio in Germany, learning the gelato business from family there.He mastered his craft in Milan where he touched gelato making at a youth jail.It was his first chance to use the type of authentic, gelato-making equipment that would shape his future.

My dream was always to open a gelato shop here, in the United States, and I started in 2006 Dolci Gelati.

But the road to Dolci wasn’t easy.It took Dellaccio 6 years to get a green card so he could legally work in the US.And the American Dream wasn’t exactly what he expected.

It was very tough, because sometimes, you know, you have those days that you feel lonely and sad — homesick.Those days helped me to build my strength."

Until he went to what he knew: Selling gelato from the back of an iconic Italian scooter.

“I had a cooler in the back of the Vespa with samples going to restaurants, to different restaurants to let the chef try the product.”

His direct marketing worked, a decade later, Gianluigi has two stores in the Washington area.He buys local when he directly employes 18 people and countless others along the supply chain.

He serves some big names, he even has a stand at Major League Baseball Park.

Once you reach a goal, you need to put another target to keep going,because if you reach one goal then you settle, that’s the day that you go down,"

Dellaccio was a recent finalist in Chicago at the Gelato World Tour. He will compete for the World’s Best Gelato in September 2017.It’s all part of a sweet dream -turned-reality through years of work, lots of smiles and a little scooter.

Arash Arabasadi, VOA news, Washington.