Sharon Love, the mother of the late Yeardley Love, has spent the last 12 years empowering young people with the tools and resources to identify and maintain healthy relationships with her One Love Foundation.
Yeardley Love was murdered by her boyfriend in 2010, just before her upcoming graduation from the University of Virginia where she played lacrosse. Love had been dating George Huguely, a men’s lacrosse player.
Huguely’s aggressive behavior and drinking problems led to their relationship being on and off for a couple of years, the Washingtonian reports. On May 3, 2010, Huguely broke into Love’s apartment and beat her to death. He was later found guilty on multiple charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Following the tragic loss, Sharon Love created the One Love Foundation to make a positive difference. After losing her daughter, Love shared that it was hard not to pull the covers over her head and give up. However, she did not.
“My daughter Lexi and I decided to get up and get going,” she said. “What we wanted to do was end domestic violence the same way mothers against drunk drivers fight to end drunk driving.”
One in four women and one in nine men experience some level of dating abuse in their life. Love doesn’t want to promote these statistics, but rather change them. Some of the One Love Foundation’s new content focuses on setting personal boundaries to help create a strong, healthy relationship. Love explained the importance of boundaries for college students in relationships today.
“I think everybody needs to know their own boundaries and stick to them…You have to be clear about what your boundaries are and don’t fall for someone who tries to persuade you to go beyond your boundaries,” she said.
Love then explained how boundaries help prevent people from becoming alienated from everything they’re familiar with, including support systems.
While One Love produces a lot of content on how to identify when you are in an unhealthy relationship, they also teach you how to help others who are in one. This was a main takeaway for some Loyola students.
Marissa Sullivan ‘23 said, “I think it’s important they’re bringing education to people who are seeing their friends in such a situation. It can be hard to know what to say to them or how to be in good support/ I’m definitely going to look into the resources they have.”
Sharon and Lexi Love are grateful for the positive impact they can make with the One Love Foundation, something that started in their home. According to their website, the One Love Foundation has educated over two million students through in-person workshops.
Sharon Love said, “I never expected to be where we are now. When we first started, we were selling t-shirts out of our basement and we thought we were successful then.”
By their own measurements, the mother and daughter have been very successful as they watch One Love flourish. All Sharon Love wants to do is make a difference of any size.
She said, “If we could save just one life, it would be worth any and all efforts we’ve made.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Eli Falconer
