By Randy Chow
The One Love Foundation at the University of Maryland held an event in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month called “One Night with One Love” at McKeldin Mall on April 18.
Students enjoyed Maryland Dairy ice cream, shopped at a pop-up clothing store and visited different tables with activities. All proceeds go to the One Love Foundation and House of Ruth, a shelter for homeless and abused women and children in Washington, according to One Love UM co-president and senior public policy major Hannah Goad Persaud.
One Love is a national non-profit organization. Their goal is ending relationship abuse, according to the foundation’s web page. One in three women and one in four men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“It’s One Love’s mission to educate people on what [unhealthy relationships] look like before it escalates into physical abuse, mental abuse, verbal abuse – to any other level,” Goad Persaud said.
About 500 students participated in the events throughout the day and the event raised $1,500, according to Goad Persaud.
Pulling off “One Night with One Love” had been quite challenging, Goad Persaud said.
It took nine months of planning and six to eight weeks to collect all the clothes for the sale.
“The fact [that] we pulled this off, it’s amazing,” Goad Persaud said. “We don’t have a budget from the school. Occupy McKeldin was given $7,000 by SGA [Student Government Association] for their speaker, and we were given $50 … That was a challenge, but it’s a great group of people working together.”
The organization was founded in 2010 in tribute to University of Virginia senior Yeardley Love. Love’s ex-boyfriend killed her just weeks before graduation, according to the American Psychological Association. One Love promotes education and tools for people to recognize healthy and unhealthy signs of love, according to the One Love’s Instagram page.
Jaclyn Welfeld, One Love UM’s director of finance and sophomore information science major, said in a statement before the event she hopes people not only enjoy themselves, but “reflect on our signs as a way to both learn how to love better and how they should be/deserve to be loved.”
The 10 Signs of a Healthy Relationship are comfortable pace, trust, honesty, independence, respect, equality, kindness, fun, healthy conflict and taking responsibility, according to One Love. Conversely, the 10 Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship are intensity, possessiveness, manipulation, isolation, sabotage, belittling, guilting, volatility, betrayal and deflecting responsibility.
These lists of traits were created by the founders of the organization: Yeardley Love’s parents and friends, said Caroline Sapo, One Love UM’s marketing and communications deputy, freshmen business major. After Love’s murder, her family and friends reflected on the signs of abuse and began listing it.