Yeardley’s family kept quiet in public about the young woman they had lost, declining interviews from Oprah Winfrey and Piers Morgan, according to some close to the case. While Sharon Love said she worried that any pretrial publicity might hurt the case against Huguely, she also said that her sister—Yeardley’s aunt—planned to write a book about the ordeal and that she preferred to let the book speak for the family. But while she and Yeardley’s sister said nothing to the media, they and other loved ones toiled tirelessly behind the scenes creating an organization designed to both honor Yeardley’s memory and help other young adults, regardless of the outcome of the criminal trial.
In mid-September, Yeardley’s family and friends unveiled the One Love Foundation, a nonprofit organization created as “a tribute to Yeardley Reynolds Love, who wore #1 as a lacrosse player at both Notre Dame Prep and the University of Virginia. Yeardley lived her life with one purpose: to make her world a better place.” The foundation, online at www.joinonelove.org, includes heart-adorned messages such as “inspire others.” It is a registered 501(c)(3) organization, meaning it is a tax-exempt charity.
One Love’s creation made headlines across the country, including on ABC’s Good Morning America. By the time of its unveiling, the foundation already had several fundraisers in the works, including a Baltimore Orioles game, a golf tournament, and a marathon. Notre Dame Prep, Yeardley’s high school, announced it wanted to build a turf field in honor of their slain alumna, and funds raised by One Love would help offset the costs. The school also aimed to create a scholarship in Love’s name. The Texas-based Charles T. Bauer Foundation offered a challenge match to donate, dollar-for-dollar, all gifts up to $500,000. The exchange would support a scholarship fund to provide a full, four-year scholarship every fourth year for a Notre Dame student.
Sharon Love released a short statement to the media about the foundation:
“The mission of the foundation is to encourage and develop in children and young adults four qualities of character that Yeardley exemplified—service, kindness, humility, and sportsmanship—that together add up to One Love. The foundation would like to ‘bring out the Yeardley’ in everyone…. It is our turn to make Yeardley proud, and we will do our very best.”
The foundation’s Web site spells out its lofty goals, which include encouraging young adults to “choose a path of goodness.” Among its other aims: to help children and young adults participate in service programs, to draw attention to society’s “unsung heroes,” and to create a character-based program to bring sports, specifically lacrosse, into underprivileged communities. “In turn, the beneficiaries of such programs would be encouraged to ‘pay it forward’ and volunteer in their own communities.” The site includes a brief biography, describing Yeardley’s upbringing and ambitions, as well as a copy of the high school essay she wrote about herself that had been handed out to mourners at her funeral. The family also posted photographs of Yeardley from happier times—swimming with friends, at the beach with her family, dressed in her Sunday best with her sister, smiling broadly with friends. In one picture, she mugs to the camera in her lacrosse gear, jokingly jutting out her bright green mouth guard. In another, she stands alongside roommate and teammate Caitlin “Caity” Whiteley, who would later discover her battered body. In the photograph, the girls are beaming; both are wearing #1 jerseys.
The foundation’s site includes ways to donate, as well as links to One Love merchandise, from T-shirts to wristbands to bumper stickers. Donors are encouraged to leave messages, which the foundation posts online:
“Yeards, the girls play with your sticks and we feel you right here with us. Keeping you close…”
“For our children, may they always love and honor life like this young woman did.”
“I keep a little bit of Yeardley with me every day, and I miss her so much! This is just a small tribute to the impact she had on me as a friend and mentor at UVA, and I just feel so lucky to have met someone as beautiful, caring and kind-spirited as her. I will always remember her.”
The last message was signed by Boyd Vicars, a member of UVA’s field hockey team.
The site closes with a quote from Mother Teresa: “So let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
Hoping to raise money for the foundation, the Timonium, Maryland–based Baltimore Coffee and Tea Company released a special blend in Yeardley’s honor. The coffee mixed two beans—Costa Rican and Brazilian Santos—to create something “a little sweeter and a little softer, to emulate her,” Norman Loverde, the company’s executive vice president, told journalist Nick DiMarco. “It’s a make-everybody-happy kind of coffee. That’s what she was about.”
For each $9.50 bag of “Yeardley’s Blend” that it sold, the company said it would donate $5 to the One Love Foundation.
Loverde said his motivation was simple: He had sent his daughters to Notre Dame Prep, and his family had always placed importance on giving back to the community and the school. The company had been roasting and cultivating coffees at its 9 West Aylesbury Road location for fourteen years, DiMarco reported, and had regularly developed private-label coffees for local businesses and fundraisers.
“This is our niche,” he told DiMarco. “It’s a part of our culture and philosophy. We’ve always done this.”
But Yeardley’s Blend hit closer to home, Loverde admitted. One of his daughters had been friends with Yeardley, and the slain girl had been to his home and played with his children.
“I don’t think you need much motivation for this. I’m a parent,” Loverde said. “My daughter being friends with her, obviously we’re affected by it. It’s tragic…. We’re just trying to make something good out of something bad.”
Catherine Barthelme, one of Love’s best friends involved with the One Love Foundation, told DiMarco that the coffee was a “great personalized way to keep Yeardley’s memory alive.
“It’s one of the positive things that has come out of this tragedy, that everyone has come together to keep Yeardley’s memory alive,” Barthelme said. “I think that every single girl in my class could say this, but she had the most contagious laugh and smile.”
Yeardley’s Blend became a popular gift at Christmas-time, allowing people to both buy coffee for loved ones and donate to the One Love charity. The foundation also planned a New Year’s celebration marking January 1, 2011—or 1/1/11, an appropriate date for a young woman who had worn a #1 jersey. Tickets to the $75-a-person event sold out in late December and, just days later, the foundation announced that it had reached its first fundraising goal.
“Notre Dame Preparatory School is pleased to announce that a $500,000 challenge grant from the Charles T. Bauer Foundation has been met,” read a news release from the high school. “With the funds, the school may begin two projects honoring deceased alumna Yeardley Reynolds Love: The Yeardley Reynolds Love Field, and a scholarship in Ms. Love’s name.”
Of the $500,000 raised, One Love donated $220,000 in gifts and pledges, the school reported.
“This challenge grant received tremendous support from the NDP community and beyond, locally and nationally, demonstrating the regard people hold for Yeardley and her family,” said headmistress Sister Patricia McCarron in a released statement.
School spokeswoman Cami Colarossi told Patch reporters that school officials were taking “sheer delight in the fact that this one grant is really launching two projects. We are thrilled with that.”
Sharon Love again spoke to the media through a released statement: “We are so grateful for the support of the community. We are thrilled that…future generations of need-based students will have the opportunity for a NDP education. We all know how special NDP was to Yeardley, and think this is an amazing tribute to her.”
As the weather grew bitter, many of Yeardley’s friends sent messages to the Love family offering support and prayers. Even strangers sent their version of comfort online—one such message, sent via the social networking site Twitter, called on people to pause and remember the Loves on Christmas Day. Their grief must have been crippling.
Outwardly at least, the One Love Foundation kept its messages upbeat and succinct. Through its own Twitter account, it posted thank-yous to followers as it promoted the foundation. As the holidays neared, its Twitter account, @ JoinOneLove, posted photographs of college-age girls wearing One Love T-shirts and bustling crowds at events such as one held in a Baltimore bar called Pickles Pub. Notre Dame Prep hosted the Yard for Yeardley event Oct. 1, inviting supporters to watch the Baltimore Orioles take on the Detroit Tigers at Camden Yards. Tickets cost $15, and proceeds went to the Love fund. In another play on words, the “Every Yard for Yeardley” racing team formed, raising money through donations for a November run in Richmond. The team ultimately raised more than $60,000, according to the foundation, and as of late January, the team had re-launched in hopes of raising $10,000 more for the Charlottesville 8K, Half-Marathon, and Marathon to be run April 9.
On Christmas Day, One Love sent out a simple message: “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the One Love foundation! Thanks for all your support!” Barely a week later, it sent an emphatic thanks to the 800 people who took part in the “1.1.11” fundraising event: “You are all amazing!!”
The benign comments and fundraising efforts highlighted how the Loves chose to outwardly mourn: by turning to activism. It was a method that Morgan Harrington’s parents had used as well as they grappled with their daughter’s recent murder. REMEMBER MORGAN T-shirts for sale at www.findmorgan.com helped support both a memorial scholarship at Virginia Tech, and the construction of an educational wing in an African village. But while the families were similar in their attempts at advocacy, they deviated when it came to sharing their grief. Gil Harrington, Morgan’s mother, continued to turn to the Web to vent, to post poems, to describe how life was like a minefield around the holidays.
“There is a lot of pain in discarding family traditions that are fractured for us without Morgan taking her part in them,” she wrote in January.
The Loves had endured two horrific losses in less than a decade: first John Love, then Yeardley. How many broken family traditions were they being forced to endure?
Nick DiMarco, editor of the Lutherville-Timonium Patch (an online news organization backed by AOL), had by then written several stories about Yeardley, particularly about the outpouring of community support in the months after her death. Out of respect for the still-pending trial, he refrained from asking questions about the criminal case but asked to learn more about Yeardley as a person. The most he had learned about her personality was that she was a “sweet, sweet girl,” as Loverde had described. DiMarco was employed as a research assistant for this book.
He contacted officials with Notre Dame Prep, Yeardley’s high school, and at first was greeted kindly by a public relations representative. Soon after, however, he received a terse e-mail from the school’s headmistress, which stated that “no one affiliated with Notre Dame Preparatory School will participate in the research in any way.” She demanded that DiMarco “cease” his research “regarding this project or any other information about Miss Love or her family.”
While taken aback, DiMarco complied and reached out next to Karen McGagh, a Love family friend and self-described spokeswoman for the One Love Foundation. The two spoke amicably on the phone about DiMarco’s intended research and agreed to communicate via e-mail. During one e-mail thread, McGagh abruptly replied, “Hi nick! (sic) I will not be speaking with you on this issue.” The signature line on the email read, “Sent from my iPhone.”
Then DiMarco received an e-mail from a woman with whom he had spoken for Patch’s story about “Yeardley’s Blend,” the coffee whose sales had benefited the One Love Foundation. The woman thanked DiMarco for his story, then continued:
“I understand that you now have a new assignment. I would ask you not to use my name as a frame of reference for that or any other assignments…. Again, I appreciate your coverage of Yeardley’s Blend.”
DiMarco finally made headway with St. Joseph Parish, home of Yeardley’s elementary school. Sister Anne O’Donnell, the school’s principal, agreed to organize a gathering of Yeardley’s former teachers to talk about the young woman behind the headlines. On Friday, January 14, she led Di-Marco to a work area of the school where about twenty-five teachers were sitting at tables after a work session. The students had been given the day off for an extra long weekend, thanks to the following Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday.
DiMarco again explained his intentions—that he wanted to assist in a manuscript meant to humanize Yeardley and describe what kind of person the world had lost with her untimely death. The teachers agreed and began to talk about Yeardley’s younger years—her bright smile and blue eyes, her loving relationship with her father.
Four and a half minutes into his interviews, DiMarco was interrupted. O’Donnell pulled him out of the room, saying she had been contacted just then by someone with the One Love Foundation.
“It was like going to the principal’s office,” DiMarco described. “O’Donnell said that I could no longer be there and asked that all information I had collected be given back to her. I said I could not do that.”
DiMarco collected his things and was escorted from the building.
It was a frustrating experience. DiMarco considered himself a sensitive reporter who had clearly spelled out his intentions both in writing and in person. Weeks later, one of the sources would reach out to him again to ask for help publicizing another fundraising event, and while she apologized for her earlier snubbing, she still declined to describe the young woman for whom the money was being raised.