In the News: Student organizer nabs accolades

Tia Piscitelli sparked lots of passion, volunteers and attention last year with her efforts to provide tie-blankets to patients at Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland.

The Newberg High School junior has been serving the community in a wide variety of ways since second grade — collecting food for the city’s animal shelter, bringing petting zoos to senior centers, helping the Salvation Army match donated gift items to needy children.
  
It was the tie-blankets, however, that helped Piscitelli win Yamhill County’s Outstanding 4-H Girl of the Year award. She also won an I Dare You Leadership Award, a $100 Senior Record Book Award, and was chosen along with 16 other applicants (out of 30) to   represent Oregon at the 4-H National Congress in Atlanta over the Thanksgiving holiday.
  
The way Piscitelli and her blanket project inspired her peers may be as important as the blankets themselves, said Mike Knutz, 4-H Youth Development Program and Yamhill County Leader for the Oregon State University Extension Service.
  
“She’s really motivated them,” said Knutz, citing 4-H members now fundraising for an African orphanage that needs basic supplies and playground equipment. Those girls saw what was possible when they participated in Piscitelli’s massive tie-blanket drive, and that motivated them to start their own project, he said.
  
Piscitelli was active even before she had spinal surgery at Shriners August 2011. But she said the surgery and recovery period “made me really step into other people’s shoes that have actually been in the hospital and experienced something like that.”
  
Sparked by a comforting tie-blanket present from her sister, Piscitelli developed two goals: First, provide tie-blankets to all Shriners patients; and second, encourage other 4-H members to get involved.
  
Piscitelli wrote a successful grant application for $1,440 from the Oregon 4-H Foundation and raised $600 more through 4-H fundraisers. She hosted a countywide blanket-making day that produced 95 blankets in four hours with help from 80-plus people, from adult volunteers to 4-H members from 15 different clubs. She led the county’s 4-H Ambassadors in persuading the Oregon 4-H Summer Conference to add the project to its “featured service options,” resulting in another 40 blankets.
  
With all the help, Piscitelli has already doubled her original goal of 100 blankets and will continue through her senior year, where it will be her senior project.
  
This is all in addition to being president of the Red Hill Riders and Fox Hollow 4-H clubs, where Piscitelli’s projects include horses, dairy cows, dogs, cats, poultry, rabbits, cavies and educational displays.

The activities all fall into place pretty easily, said Piscitelli, who is planning to add at least one more thing: “I need to get a job.”

By: Jill Smith, Newberg Graphic