Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 7

nesTauranno open its doors to homeless i For the poor, a Thanksgiving to remember By DAN GERINGER geringdphillynews.com 215-854-5961 Welcome to the Numbers Racket, a look at the numerals that define us. People who've gotten their name in lights on the Peco Building Pope John Paul II, Gov. Rendell, and now Phillies' National League MVP Ryan Howard. Someone doesn't belong in that group unless he was beefier than he looked under that robe. Dollars an hour advertised for newspaper reporters "willing to cross a picket line" in December at an undisclosed site "on the East Coast," according to Philadelphia Weekly.

Whew! Good thing Philly isn't on the coast! Percent unemployment rate in Pennsylvania, lowest since February 2001 and lower than the national average. That's good news (see above item). this week so he could extend his invitation to everyone who needs a Thanksgiving dinner. As he has done in years past, Berarducci put up a large sign at his front entrance: "All underprivileged people welcome to Portofmo Please join us for Thanksgiving Dinner." "I'm not a millionair I'm never going to be a millionaire," said the self-made, self-effacing restaurateur, who came to this country 40 years ago as a tourist and stayed so long that he lost his job as an agricultural researcher back in Italy. Berarducci worked as a waiter and bartender before opening his first restaurant, Pinocchio's, on 15th Street near Locust.

"I had a great and crazy chef," he said, "but I was everything else waiter, bartender, maitre d'. It was very tough. "So I owe God a lot. I am a religious person. I believe that one way to serve the Lord is to serve other Jf flrflBjBfl riiC 'iilHk -'JM-l 14 "If you have no Thanksgiving meal to go to, no family, no turkey, please you are welcome to come to my Portofmo Restaurant to share our Thanksgiving meal with us," Ralph Berarducci said with an Old-World Italian charm that has survived four decades in Philadelphia.

As he has done so often since opening Portofmo 30 years ago on Walnut Street near 12th, Berarducci, 70, is welcoming the poor and the homeles to his elegant eatery for a free Thanksgiving dinner, served from 1 to 6 p.m. He's expecting 500 to 600 people. Already, he has quietly invited hundreds of men from the city's Ridge Avenue shelter, the nonresidential men who regularly eat lunch at St. John's Hospice on Race Street near 12th and the poor and homeless who receive services from several Center City churches. Berarducci called the Daily News Dollars of market value of Google after its stock price soared past $500 a share yesterday.

Someday, we'll have to go to the store and buy one of them Googles, whatever it is. Percent of American babies born out of wedlock, a new high. Apparently, Tom and Katie and Brad and Angelina are trend-ier than we realized. JESSICA GRIFFINDaily News Ralph Berarducci will serve a gracious meal at Portofmo. See DINNER Page 20 Signe gets Library of Congress calendar honor Daily News staff report The Library of Congress has recog- AND IN IRAQ Number of U.S.

military deaths reported since last Thursday. The military on Tuesday confirmed that a Michigan man serving in the Army National Guard was killed in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. Spc. Brad Shilling, 22, of Stanwood, died Saturday in Baghdad of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations, the Defense Department said. ized Daily News cartoonist Signe Wilkinson in its popular "Women Who Dare" desk calendar that since 1994 She's also the first entry in the calendar whose portr ait is a cartoon rather than a photogr aph.

In the 2007 calendar, Wilkinson presides over the week of Dec. 17-23. "To be put in the same compan as Stanwyck and Nefertiti is something I never expected, but it made my day," Wilkinson said. She also joins lesser-known but equally daring women in the calendar including Juliann Jane Tillman, an early preacher of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Chien-Shiung Wu, a physicist; and Emily and Mary Edmonson, two young abolitionist sisters. Wilkinson joined the Daily News in 1985.

Last year, the University of the Arts exhibited a retrospectiv of her work. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Jon Landau. They have two daughters. The "Women Who Dare" calendar is published by Pomegranate Press and retails for it sells about 15,000 copies a year. It has recently spun off into a book series.

has annually recognized accomplished women. Wilkinson joins luminaries such as Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother, who raised five children alone after becoming widowed, actress Barbara Stanwyck, writer Susan Sontagand Egyptian queen Neferti-ti. Linda Osborne writer and editor of the calendar, said the Library of Congress searches for women who have done difficult things, or things that were difficult for the times. They look for "firsts," and for women whom younger women can look up to. Wilkinson was chosen for the 2007 calendar, Osborne said, because she was the first woman to win a Pulitzer prize for cartooning which she won in 1992.

Number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq since combat began in March 2003, according to icasualties.org The Daily News honors members of the armed services who made the ultimate sacrifice during the war in Iraq. Their deaths will not be forgotten. Will Bunch Tehrarv off Signe Wilkinson's portrait uT Congress calendar will be a cartoon, of course. PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS PAGE 7 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2006.