Onori

You’ve got answers? Frank DiPiero has questions: lots of them. An affable and curious guy by nature, DiPiero has turned pride in his Italian-American identity into a shared Internet radio experience with a light-hearted name: “Keepin’ It Real with Frankie D.” For him, it marks another step in his effort to promote education, culture and awareness in the Italian community. “I started ‘Keepin’ It Real with Frankie D.’ in 2013,” says DiPiero, whose father traces his roots to Bugnara in Abruzzo and his mother to Sant’Ambrogio in Sicily. As for the name, “That’s what everyone called me when I was …

With a great uncle, two uncles and a father serving in World War II, Diana Fecarotta had a tough act to follow. But because of her family’s example, Fecarotta went on to distinguish herself in service to her nation: serving in the Marines from 1966 to 1968 and the Air Force Reserve from 1972 to 1975. Yet her contributions are far from over. Fecarotta is now the first woman to serve as a commander of an Italian American War Veterans post, taking the lead at the IAWV Guido Belmonte Post #4 after a quarter of a century as a member. …

When Joy Loverde was just 14 years old, she volunteered to help out at a nursing home on Thanksgiving morning. Coming as she did from a loving Italian family, she was shocked by what she saw. “I couldn’t understand why seven people were sitting in the dark with no one around them, when I was going home to a large, wonderful Italian fest,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Something is terribly wrong here. How could this happen?’” Many years later, Loverde would keep that moment in mind and heart when she wrote “The Complete Eldercare Planner: Where to Start, Questions to …

When the ultra-picky Michelin Guide passed judgment on Tocco in funky Wicker Park, they began with a flattering question: “Are we in Milan or Wicker Park?” And just a year prior, Tocco won an OpenTable Diners’ Choice Award in 2013. But for all the bragging he could do about his restaurant, owner/chef Bruno Abate has something else he wants to discuss. Just before the dinner rush — in a mod dining room with white, ski-slope chairs — Abate projects a video on the wall that shows him talking to nearly 40 inmates at Cook County Jail. Rather than prison blues …

If the worth of a life is measured in the lives one changes, then Sister Mary Ventura O.P. is pure gold, and an example to all who work with children and young adults in the name of literacy. A teacher for 67 years, Ventura directs the Essential Learning Solutions lab at St. Bernadette Catholic Academy in Evergreen Park. She could’ve rested on her laurels long ago, but Ventura still puts in 10-hour work days. She’s worked at the , lab for the past 20 years. Sister Mary has received many awards over her prolific career, but the one she calls …

Joanne Bratta’s work defines “calling” in a way that’s both inspirational and admirable. As the executive director of St. Mary’s Services in Arlington Heights, Bratta helps women deal with one of life’s most daunting challenges: unplanned pregnancies. “We do option counseling to help them make a choice on what they want to do,” says Bratta, who started officially with St. Mary’s in 2012, but has a professional relationship with the adoption agency stretching back more than two decades. “Option counseling focuses on what the woman wants, not what we want. We educate them about adoption and explain that it’s relationship …