Participants in the Fredonia "Around the World for Yeardley" Awareness Walk on April 18 logged 2,833,669 yards inside the Steele Hall Fieldhouse, according to a student organizer.
"Our Fredonia campus came together," said senior Ben Chatley (Sanborn/Starpoint), "to walk in memory of friends and to raise awareness of dating and domestic violence not only on college campuses but across the country as a whole. I am very, very proud to say that we far surpassed our goal for this year...This is an absolutely amazing accomplishment that would not have been possible without the work and efforts of everyone involved."
Participants included students from all walks of campus life, plus staff and other community members, who set out with the goal of reaching 2 million yards -- one lap at a time -- in support of the One Love Foundation's mission to raise awareness of dating and domestic violence. The initiative is named as a tribute to Yeardley Love, a former University of Virginia women's lacrosse player, who was murdered by her boyfriend in 2010.
The event -- moved inside and out of the cold weather -- began Wednesday morning and lasted until 7 p.m. A late push sent the distance traveled -- an estimated 1,610 miles -- over the top and far exceeded the 1.3 million yards Fredonians covered in 2017.
One student-athlete, according to a report, ran an estimated 230 laps -- the equivalent of 23 miles.
Chatley, president of the Fredonia Student-Athlete Advisory Council. past president of the conference-wide SUNYAC SAAC, and a member of the Fredonia men's swimming and diving team, said the winners of the drawings for raffle items and the results of the team challenges will be announced soon. "It is more than easy to say," he said, "that this campaign not only raised the awareness we wanted, but brought our campus closer together with each and every step."
