One yard at a time, SUNY Oswego’s campus community continues to walk in support of dating and domestic violence victims, even during the pandemic. This year marked the seventh annual edition of Yards for Yeardley since it first arrived at SUNY Oswego in 2015.

After last year’s event transitioned into a virtual format, this year’s campaign continued that trend stretching over the span of more than one month. This virtual event began April 1 and came to a close May 3 at 2:30 p.m., the anniversary of Yeardley Love’s death, who was killed by her ex-boyfriend three weeks shy of her college graduation back in 2010.

Spearheaded by SUNY Oswego’s Title IX coordinator Lisa Evaneski, the Yards for Yeardley annual event pertains to the requirements for some of the different laws requiring the college to do ongoing awareness programs, bystander intervention and prevention programs.

Evaneski’s office has specific training designated for students and employees, student organizations, student-athletes and Greek organizations. Their work also partners with the One Love Foundation, the Clery Center and the national group It’s On Us.

“We have such great support from our campus, including our students, employees, alumni and community members,” Evaneski said. “I’m always looking forward to ‘what can we do that’s bigger or better or what can we improve.’ I feel like I always wake up with that mindset every day. I’m very grateful that we have such a great community that participates in all this stuff we’re doing, that invites us into training and that reports to us when something happens.”

When COVID-19 forced SUNY Oswego and other colleges nationwide to switch to remote learning, Evaneski says, it forced her office to pump the brakes quickly on Sexual Assault Awareness Month, leading them to move right into doing all the planned activities in a virtual format.

“I was not sure if people would participate,” Evaneski said. “I always like to set a goal for myself and for us. I was like ‘wow, I hope we get to one million;’ I was really just hopeful that people would engage in some way and maybe participate, and it was better than expected.”

Evaneski’s office had hundreds of people submit miles, yards and steps, which they then converted to yards. Last year’s month-long tally added up to nearly 22 million yards.

Putting that into perspective with the single-day editions celebrated in previous years, the first year they nearly reached two million yards albeit their highest ever pre-COVID yardage sat at approximately eight million, according to Evaneski.

“Last year we didn’t overly advertise it, but this year we were a little more intentional,” Evaneski said. “Last year we were thinking ‘everyone is so overwhelmed because of the pandemic,’ and this year we were like ‘OK, let’s give people something fun to finish up the year.’”

In fact, as of May 3 at 2:30 p.m. at the official closing of the yearly event, Evaneski and her team had recorded a tally of over 20 million yards.

“It seems there are more people involved this year than last year, even though right now we’re seeing less of a yardage,” Evaneski said. “For me, it’s more important to have more people involved.”

Evaneski’s office relies heavily on the support of its interns, who serve as an essential backbone in planning and carrying out the yearly events.

“Dating and domestic violence is such a contentious, sad and difficult topic, but just to see other clubs, even male-dominated clubs come out and be supportive of it has taught me that people do care about this and it does matter,” intern Julia Krurnowski said. “It felt good to be a part of something that was raising awareness for an issue that I care immensely about.”

In an effort to avoid such tragedies from happening on SUNY Oswego’s campus, Evaneski’s office participates in theme months aside from Sexual Assault Awareness Month during April, including Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October and Stalking Awareness Month throughout January.

“We walk for Yeardley, we walk for Alex and we walk for Kelsey,” Evaneski said. “We walk for these people that have lost their lives to domestic violence and dating violence, and we walk to prevent it from happening here. By having those conversations, our community members are talking about the work of the One Love Foundation.”

At the time of publishing, Beta Alpha Psi students alongside women’s track and field athlete Mackenzie Maxam were among those still working to verify the numbers logged this year.

Photo provided by Tashana Joseph