By Cassidey Kavathas, News Editor
The Yards for Yeardley event, presented by Empower Student Peer Prevention Educator Group in partnership with the One Love Foundation, held their award ceremony yesterday. The event was in memorial of Yeardley Love, who lost her life to relationship violence in 2010 as well as raising awareness of interpersonal or dating violence during sexual assault awareness month. Empower exceeded their goal of five million yards over four times, with their final count being around 22 million yards raised.
“We [Empower] are elated with the results!” said Dr. Jennifer Eastman, the director of the Campus Program. “The number of participants is approximately 500, a huge increase from last year.”
Empower aims to educate the campus community on sexual assault, dating and domestic violence and stalking. They provide training on bystander intervention, healthy relationships and LGBTQ+ allyship. Empower also hosts comprehensive victim advocacy services for any Bonaventure campus members who are survivors or victims of these crimes which includes a 24/7 hotline linked to Connecting Communities in Action.
The Yards for Yeardley event was open to students, faculty, staff, community members, alumni and teams. Community members such as the New York State Police, Southern Tier Health Care System, Connecting Communities in Action and the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Department participated with the campus community to raise awareness.
“The team that had the most yards was our community partner, the New York State Police,” said Eastman. “They are members of our Coordinated Community Response Team and provide training to students, faculty and staff through our Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Program and New York State’s Enough is Enough program.”
Multiple St. Bonaventure University D1 athletic teams participated, including women’s lacrosse, women’s cross country and track, women’s swim and dive, women’s tennis, men’s baseball, men’s soccer and men’s cross country and track. Women’s swim and dive and men’s soccer were able to donate the most yards.
“We are honored to have our student athletes donate their yards to spread the message of preventing relationship violence,” said Eastman. “Yeardley Love was a D1 women’s lacrosse player and athletic team participation was crucial to the success of this challenge.”
Men’s and women’s rugby also participated in the event. Faculty members from the English department, sociology and criminology department, the Jandoli School of Communication and staff from the Friedsam Memorial Library participated as teams. Residence life, student affairs division, Title IX office and student residences joined in the effort to raise over five million yards.
“I participated with my rugby team and was able to raise 91,396.8 yards,” said Caitlyn Slater, a freshman childhood and early childhood education major. “It was rewarding to know that my participation was helping a good cause and raising awareness.”
Women’s and men’s rugby each won in their category.
Faculty winners include Dr. Lauren Matz, an English professor and Dr. Michael Hoffman, an adjunct professor. Staff winners include Hope Thomas from the athletic department and Gary Segrue, associate dean for campus safety. Student winners include Victoria Vega, a junior accounting major and Logan Caruso, a junior accounting major.
“I was able to raise just shy of 250,000 yards,” said Caruso. “Relationship abuse and violence towards women in general is an ever-present problem in our society and being able to raise awareness and continue to have a conversation is important and being able to be a part of that is a great feeling.”
Empower holds weekly meetings and offers a variety of events on campus such as Bystander Intervention training. They host monthly programs on a variety of topics related to preventative education for gender-based violence, sexual assault, dating/domestic violence and stalking as well as promotion of victim services.
“We plan to have our third annual Yards for Yeardley event next spring,” said Eastman. “We’re hoping for even more campus and community participation.”
kavathcj20@bonaventure.edu
