Women's Lacrosse: One Love Committee
10/22/2021
The Delaware women's lacrosse team has developed five committees in support of five different organizations the team feels passionate about. They have incredible leaders in the senior class and wanted to create areas for them to utilize their leadership qualities. The women's lacrosse program is heavily involved in giving back and supporting a variety of organizations any way possible. The Blue Hens want to spread awareness and leave a lasting impact on the community. Over the next few months, BlueHens.com will feature every committee and catch up with the organizers.
The first committee that will be highlighted supports the One Love Foundation and is run by seniors Nikki Feaster and Malaina Dunn. One Love was created in memory of Yeardley Love, a former member of the University of Virginia women's lacrosse team, after she was beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend in 2010. We talked to Feaster and Dunn to find out more about One Love and how it's important to the lacrosse community.
WHAT DOES ONE LOVE DO?
One Love is an organization that is dedicated to educating young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships. Love is crucial in our lives and can be argued to be the most important thing. However, we are taught very little about love. This foundation empowers and educates young people to identify and avoid abuse when it comes to relationships. Through workshops and peer-to-peer discussions, One Love shares their message to promote honest and open conversations. The goal of One Love is to prevent relationship abuse by educating the youth of early signs and their available resources.
Our committee had our first meeting last week and we are very excited to get things going. We already have an amazing group of girls committed to this foundation and who truly believe in what it promotes. We cannot wait for this committee to begin leaving its legacy on the women's lacrosse program for years to come.Nikki Feaster and Malaina Dunn
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO REPRESENT ONE LOVE?
It is an honor to represent One Love. Since we were freshmen, multiple upperclassmen represented this foundation for our team and did an amazing job of educating us and the community. To be another voice that gets to promote the mission of One Love by educating young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships and ultimately "love better". With the opportunity to be the first leaders of this committee we get to start the legacy of our team's commitment and continuing education of the mission of One Love.
WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THE ONE LOVE COMMITTEE?
The goal of our committee is to raise awareness and the mission of One Love within our team, the athletic community, and the university. We hope to have trained facilitators in every grade by the end of the semester so that we can run workshops and open up peer-to-peer discussions. Other goals of our committee for this year include fundraising for the One Love foundation and will be hosting a spring “One Love” game to promote the cause. Our communication with the men's lacrosse team about One Love has opened up and we are planning on working together to help spread the message.
WHY IS ONE LOVE IMPORTANT TO YOU?
One Love is important because it was created after a young college athlete, such as ourselves, was in an unhealthy relationship that led her to being killed by her boyfriend. There were many signs of their unhealthy relationship that their friends and family missed. As we grow, we ourselves may begin a new relationship and it is important to notice the healthy and unhealthy signs of a relationship. In both of our pasts, we have witnessed or been a part of unhealthy relationships and being a part of this organization allows us to step up and take action to educate our teammates and those we care about how to recognize and safely intervene in an unhealthy relationship.
One Love Foundation is a national non-profit organization with the goal of ending relationship abuse. We empower young people with the tools and resources they need to see the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships and bring life-saving prevention education to their communities.JoinOneLove.org
In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (#DVAM), we’re teaming up with athletes and student leaders to bring you our playbook for healthy relationships! Each week we'll share the skills you can use on or off the field to improve your relationships. #Loveislearned pic.twitter.com/CkU4qAf2nq
— One Love Foundation (@Join1Love) October 12, 2021
