HILLSDALE—Saying “It’s the dawn of a new day for child safety,” the Joan Angela D’Alessandro Memorial Foundation has announced its Eighth Annual Child Safety Festival, Saturday, Sept. 24 at the Joan Angela
D’Alessandro White Butterfly Sculpture and Garden at the Hillsdale Train Station, on Broadway.
It’s a few weeks out, but the time is now to support the cause: the foundation seeks volunteers and raffle gift donations. The schedule of events, according to Rosemarie D’Alessandro:
- 2 p.m.: Come together in a circle to stand up and do something for social justice.
- 2:30: Speakers.
- 3: Butterfly release.
- 3:30: Entertainment: professional singers and dance company.
- 4:30: Raffle winners are announced.
There’ll be a fun area for kids, with face painting and balloon twisting. And of course a tricky tray and raffles.
Rosemarie and her family formed the foundation in 1998 in memory of her daughter, who was sexually assaulted and murdered by a neighbor on Holy Thursday in 1973. Joan’s body was discovered that Easter Sunday in a sepulcher -like space in Harriman State Park in New York.
The killer was sentenced to life for his crimes. He died last summer while serving out his term at the South Woods State Prison in Cumberland County.
Meanwhile, D’Alessandro has found potent symbolism and playful companionship in a white butterfly, which she has said greets her at the park.
Joan’s Joy promotes child safety via programs it provides and legislation it advocates. It provides support to neglected and abused children through fun and educational excursions and it helps victims of crime by way of consultation.
Luca Focella is scholarship winner
D’Alessandro recently met at the Joan Angela D’Alessandro Sculpture and Garden with graduating Pascack Valley High School senior Luca Focella, recipient of the Second Annual Joan’s Joy “Stand Up and Do Something” Scholarship.
Joan’s Joy’s board selected Focella’s essay and was delighted to recognize him “for standing up for someone in need, finding strength in his own voice to speak up, even as he was faced with a difficult situation.”
D’Alessandro told Pascack Press on Aug. 9, “Standing up for someone else is empowering and spreads courage for others to do the same.”
She said Focella, of Little Ferry and who is off to Rutgers for a degree in finance, is “a go-getter, but nice — like, kind” and a gifted musician. His mom teaches Italian at PVHS, D’Alessandro said.
D’Alessandro included in her reflection the scholarship’s inaugural winner, Pascack Valley’s Delia Collis, and said, “These kids are lovely, all of them. That’s why this thing gives me extreme enjoyment; to see these young ones and connect to them and see that they’re going to have a life ahead. And just to be able maybe to say some encouraging words to them…”
She recalled a formative experience of her own: a particularly present teacher. “To this day that teacher gives me encouragement. She let me do something without yelling at me. I did something naughty, it wasn’t a big deal, and she just understood, let her get it out, leave her alone, it wasn’t a big deal. And then I got the award for that class.”
D’Alessandro added, “I always loved that because I needed to see that. I needed to see that. I wasn’t going to be put down.”
The Stand Up and Do Something Scholarship was made possible by a donation from a former board member.
Learn more
D’Alessandro also recently posted a new video, available at joansjoy.org, giving more details on a book she’s adding to, anticipated April 2023: “It’s the first time I read from the killer’s letters in public. You also might be moved by the way I talk about Joan and hope.”
Moreover, she said, “A documentary [‘Daughter of Mine’] by former Hillsdale resident Vanessa Martino will be shown to my family in August. She plans to submit it to film festivals after that.”