Iona Women’s Lacrosse Earns BSN Sports MAAC Community Spotlight Honors
Edison, N.J. (May 8, 2020) – The BSN Sports MAAC Community Spotlight will be a weekly feature of those giving back in an effort to make a difference in their communities. This week the MAAC would like to highlight the Iona College Women’s Lacrosse program. The team has taken part in the Yards for Yeardly Challenge in conjunction with the One Love Foundation.
The One Love Foundation was created in 2010 to honor the memory of Yeardley Love, a student-athlete at the University of Virginia who was killed by her ex-boyfriend just weeks before she graduated. The foundation strives to honor the memory of Love by educating, empowering, and activating young people in a movement for social change. Through deep conversations among peers, classmates, and communities, everyone has the bond to become part of productive change and reduce daunting characteristics.
The Yards for Yeardley Challenge was a virtual movement to raise money and awareness. The goal for everyone who signed up was to run, walk and move one-million yards in one month. The Iona College lacrosse team pledged to accomplish this task as a team to help spread awareness for the One Love Foundation.
Iona lacrosse head coach Lauren Kahn noted: "I am so proud of all the work our team has put in to help spread awareness about this topic and about the One Love Foundation. This foundation has opened so many eyes across the country for over a decade now. It has helped bring attention to the numbers surrounding unhealthy relationships."
Paulina Perkovich has been a huge voice for One Love Foundation. She helped organize and run the Escalation Workshop with Iona student-athletes. "The One Love Foundation has been a great way to connect with young people, especially in college. Yeardley Love was a Division I lacrosse player and is someone that a lot of us can relate to on that level. The foundation has done a great job spreading awareness about the signs of a healthy and unhealthy relationship and is such an important topic." Perkovich continues, "I believe our team has done a great job of taking part to continue to spread awareness about the cause and keep the conversation going. Last year's Escalation Workshop was fantastic in showing the signs from beginning to end of an unhealthy relationship and ways to take action if someone in your life is affected by this."
On the impact of One Love Foundation, coach Kahn remarked, "The goals of this foundation is to educate and inspire people to become active participants in a collective movement for social change. I am inspired and encouraged by the ability of our team to continue to support the One Love Foundation during the current pandemic facing the nation. They have taken the initiative to continue the Yards for Yeardly effort and spread awareness digitally, by utilizing our social media platforms. This is the responsible course of action in this time but also shows the resilience and character of our players."
About the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference:
With 11 institutions strongly bound by the sound principles of quality and integrity in academics and excellence in athletics, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) is in its 39
th year of competition during the 2019-20 academic year. Current Conference members include: Canisius College, Fairfield University, Iona College, Manhattan College, Marist College, Monmouth University, Niagara University, Quinnipiac University, Rider University, Saint Peter's University, and Siena College.