HILLSDALE, N.J.—It’s been a busy time for Rosemarie D’Alessandro, founder of the Joan Angela D’Alessandro Memorial Foundation, and that’s the way she likes it. She says it means more people are connecting to “the movement,” promoting child safety and helping children in need.
D’Alessandro drew a standing ovation and, later, hugs and tears, as she accepted a Women of Achievement Award from the New Jersey State Federation of Woman’s Clubs on Monday, May 6 at a ceremony at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City.
The award was for her work on the movement: her response to the April 19, 1973 murder of her 7-year-old daughter, Joan, at the hands of a neighbor.
In the decades since the notorious killing, D’Alessandro has worked fiercely—but positively, she adds—to pass laws to raise awareness and protect children. A new book and documentary detail the case and its legacy.
Passed in New Jersey on April 3, 1997, Joan’s law states that “anyone who murders a child under fourteen years of age in conjunction with a sexual offense will never be eligible for parole and will never get out of prison.”
A federal version of the law was signed Oct. 30, 1998. Gov. George Pataki signed it into law in New York on Sept. 15, 2004.
In April 2014, D’Alessandro unveiled the Joan Angela
D’Alessandro White Butterfly Sculpture and Garden in front of the Hillsdale train station at Broadway and Hillsdale Avenue.
The foundation, also called Joan’s Joy, is tireless and bright in promoting child safety and protection, advancing victims’ rights, and helping homeless and neglected youth.
Beneficiaries include Youth Consultation Services, Holley Child Care & Development in Hackensack, and Heart & Crafts Counseling in Hillsdale.
A few weeks ago the Greater Pascack Valley Woman’s Club, under co-presidents Elaine Mooney and Elaine O’Brien, held a dinner and Lord & Taylor Spring Fashion Show at Woodcliff Manor for Joan’s Joy and for local high school scholarships.
The New Jersey Women of Achievement Awards were initiated in 1981 and are co-sponsored by New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs and Douglass Residential College of Rutgers, The State University.
Past honorees include Gov. Christie Todd Whitman and Althea Gibson, the first great African-American player in women’s tennis.
D’Alessandro told Pascack Press by phone from Atlantic City on May 7 that Mooney had nominated her twice before. This time, coinciding with the federation’s 125th annual convention, she won.
D’Alessandro said she was delighted with the turnout—some 400 people in the audience—and that when she reached her allotted three minutes her audience urged her to go on, to keep sharing.
She said she talked for 10 minutes, drawing on her contribution to the new book “The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators With the FBI’s Original Mindhunter,” by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, which features nine chapters about Joan’s case and legacy.
Douglas interviewed Joan’s murderer in 1998 and helped bolster the case to keep him in prison. Olshaker is author of four novels and producer of the Emmy-nominated “The Mind of a Serial Killer.”
The book, which covers four case files, was promoted May 3 on “The Dr. Oz Show.”
D’Alessandro also was interviewed in a documentary about the book that will stream on FOX Nation on May 30.
Copies will be available for sale at the Joan’s Joy’s Yard Sale, May 24–25 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the 45 Florence St. Hillsdale state home office of Joan’s Joy Foundation.
D’Alessandro said she spoke about all the volunteers, past and present, who make Joan’s Joy possible, “all the donors, the tricky trays, that is all a part of the movement. They’re helping get my message out to where my vision is: to help the kids. There are thousands and thousands of people in the movement.”
She said she wants to see child safety centers built in Elizabeth and Newark and elsewhere to help take children—so often sexually exploited—off the streets and give them opportunities to grow healthy and strong.
Of her address, “It was the most wonderful thing I can explain to you—we really connected. That doesn’t wear me out,” she said.
After, Mooney brought out champagne and their families, including D’Alessandro’s sons, Michael and John, celebrated.
“There’s tears, you know? There’s tears of living life,” D’Alessandro said.
Asked what she hoped her audience took from her remarks, she said, “Oh, if I can only make people understand: If they want to do something good how important their part is. I hope they can see, ‘I can do that.’”
She added, “If they need some kind of… anything, they can come over and we can have a meeting. The only way we’re going to change society is to do something.”
She said that’s how Joan lived, and lives on: “She’d say, ‘Come on, let’s go play, let’s go do something.’ So let’s do something. Then, you know, those feelings are very positive.”
The Joan’s Joy’s Yard Sale will feature 20 tables of items, six racks of clothes, beautiful furniture, and a bake sale, and is powered by more than 15 volunteers and many donors. There’s still time to donate: “We’ll make room, we’ll make room!” D’Alessandro says.
She adds all proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the foundation’s work—and that all who buy the book at the yard sale will receive a special bookmark.
For more information, including on the next Joan’s Joy Safety Fest, Sept. 28, visit joansjoy.org.