By DANIELLE GILLESPIE Staff Writer Pacific Palisades resident Jill Roberts Piscatella has spent the past 10 years helping the community through her love of dance. In 1999, she founded the D.A.R.E. America Dance Program, which brings dance into high-risk schools as a positive alternative to drugs and gangs. ’We really fill the need of something for the kids to do after school,’ Piscatella told the Palisadian-Post. ‘A lot of these kids don’t have a lot of positive influences.’ That same year, she created a program at Georgetown University Medical Center, where dancers work with cancer patients through stretch and movement to improve their quality of life. For her efforts, the 36-year-old recently received the U.S. President’s Call to Service Award, which is given to an individual who has committed more than 4,000 volunteer hours to various causes during a lifetime. In Sacramento on August 2, Piscatella received the award as well as a certificate from the Corporation for National and Community Service and USA Freedom Corp., a letter signed by President Barack Obama, a letter from the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and a service pin from Obama’s office. After earning degrees in psychology and pre-medicine at Georgetown University in 1995, Piscatella worked as the director of dean’s affairs at the school of business at Georgetown University and spent all of her free time dancing. Piscatella, who began jazz dancing at age 7 and later added tap, modern and ballet to her repertoire, taught tap and jazz to children and adults at the Joy of Motion Dance Center in Washington, D.C., and served on the center’s board. She performed in the CityDance Ensemble and choreographed numerous stage productions. After several of her family members were diagnosed with cancer, Piscatella developed the dance program ‘Lombardi Moves’ at Georgetown’s Lombardi Cancer Center. ’I wanted to help [cancer patients] feel better, to bring them joy, through stretch and movement,’ said Piscatella, who actively volunteered for the program until moving to Los Angeles in 2004 with her husband Joe, a screenwriter who wrote Disney’s ‘Underdog’ and worked on rewrites of ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ He is currently writing an animated film for Sony Pictures Entertainment. The couple has two children: Mary, 3, and Joe, 11 months. After starting ‘Lombardi Moves,’ Piscatella decided she wanted to create an after-school dance program for youth, so she sent a proposal to D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), a program founded in 1983 that strives to give kids the skills they need to avoid drugs, gangs and violence. She had earlier been president of a chapter of S.A.D.D. (Students Against Driving Drunk) at Broadneck High School in Annapolis, Maryland, and wanted to be a part of another effort to stop substance abuse. The mayor of Annapolis honored her with the Distinguished Citizen Award for her efforts to combat drunk driving. D.A.R.E. hired Piscatella to start a pilot dance program in five cities on the East Coast. Today, she serves as director of the dance program, which has expanded to 22 cities with 80 programs in 72 schools. In the Los Angeles area, the program is available in 10 schools, including Westminster Avenue Elementary in Venice and Carthay Center Elementary in West Los Angeles. Elementary and middle school students can join a free 20-week dance class led by a professional dance instructor. At the end of the course, they perform in a community or school setting and have the opportunity to earn a scholarship to a dance studio. In 2000, Piscatella took on a larger role with D.A.R.E. as national director of after-school programs and supervisor of the National Youth Advisory Board, consisting of one high school student from each of the 50 states. The teens attend a conference once a year to learn about drug trends and how to serve as mentors. Piscatella’s work through D.A.R.E. is paid, but the President’s Call to Service Award recognized her for the hours she puts in above and beyond. Captain Jeff Moore of the Demand Reduction Unit of the National Guard and former colleague through the D.A.R.E. Program nominated her for the award. For more information, visit www.dare.org.
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