Jill Gurr

In 1996, Jill Gurr founded Create Now, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles that for 17 years transformed the lives of 33,000 youth in need through arts mentoring and experiences. She has personally mentored more than 50 at-risk and high-risk youth.

Through Create Now, Jill has matched and trained hundreds of volunteers in how to mentor thousands of the most troubled children in the Los Angeles and Orlando regions.

She is a produced screenwriter, having adapted the book Hit and Run by James Hadley Chase into the screenplay Rigged, which stars George Kennedy. The film was produced by CineStar Productions. Jill also wrote "Socrates," a PBS pilot for The Immortals series that stars Ed Asner. Several of her original scripts have been optioned by reputable producers.

Jill graduated with a B.S. degree in Broadcasting and Film from Boston University. She worked for many years all over the world as a Script Supervisor (continuity) on award-winning movies with famous actors and directors. She is fluent in Spanish, French and Italian.

She has been featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360°, Fox11 News, NBC-TV and KTLA in their "Heroes at Home" segment, as well as in the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter. Jill has been interviewed on several radio shows, including CBS Radio's "Open Line" and "Community Lights," KISS-FM, KLOS-FM, LA Talk Radio's "Mother Love" and the Rolanda Watts Show.

Jill was one of eight people in the country selected by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to be featured in "Everyday Heroes," an ongoing exhibition at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

She was chosen as one of the first four Americans to ever participate in a multilateral Global Xchange program sponsored by the British Council and Volunteer Services Organization. In 2010, Jill spent six weeks in Durban, South Africa and Belfast, Northern Ireland with 26 other community leaders from six countries (Sierra Leone, Rwanda, South Africa, France, UK and US), sharing best practices for mentoring youth.

Jill has been giving acclaimed presentations to international dignitaries and diplomats through the International Visitors Council, an adjunct of the U.S. State Department. As a result, on November 3, 2011, Create Now received the prestigious "2011 Community Resource Award" at the Wilshire Country Club.

Jill was selected as one of "100 Making a Difference" for the upcoming book by celebrity photographer John Russo and written by CNN Correspondent Elizabeth Chambers.