KATONAH, N.Y. - Most high school seniors are busy with academics, sports, and preparing for the next steps toward their future.
In addition to serving as his class vice president, playing hockey and lacrosse, and being a member of Honor Council, Will Moskowitz has been busy spreading awareness for an important cause.
“This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now,” the Katonah resident explains.
A senior at St. Luke’s in New Canaan, Moskowitz is a co-founder of the school’s One Love Club. The One Love Foundation is a national non-profit that aims to end relationship abuse by empowering young people with resources to see the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and bring life-saving prevention education to their communities.
His inspiration began during his freshman year when he was faced with an unimaginable tragedy.
“One of my teammates passed away during a hockey game due to an injury,” Moskowitz explains. “It was a freak accident.”
The effect of witnessing the death of his teammate would stay with Will for several years.
But from grief would eventually come hope and inspiration.
“I know that it seems unrelated,” Moskowitz continues. “I had a very hard time trying to cope with myself. And in doing so, I thought how men - and people in general - will just keep their emotions from others. It was something that was hurting me. And One Love talks about healthy relationships. I needed to build a healthy relationship with myself. But also building relationships where you feel comfortable to talk about your feelings with others.”
This focus on the importance of healthy relationships led Will to co-found the One Love Club at St. Luke’s School last spring.
He offers interactive presentations to the school’s sports teams, helping to outline different scenarios that define unhealthy and healthy relationships.
Since its inception, the club has grown to more than 15 members, including representatives from each sports team.
In an effort to spread One Love’s message, Moskowitz joined forced with friend and neighbor Maggie O’Callaghan, the One Love co-leader at The King School in Stamford.
Together, they would pair up to raise awareness closer to home, hosting a workshop at Pound Ridge Library in October.
“We already engaged our school communities in Connecticut, so we wanted to bring it home to New York,” explains Moskowitz.
Helping with the effort on the local level was Town Justice Jodi Kimmel, who Moskowitz had worked with last summer at Bedford Town Court.
“Judge Kimmel is also very passionate about promoting healthy relationships,” Moskowitz adds. “We had a bunch of conversations about it, and she was one of the inspirations for the event.”
In addition to Judge Kimmel and Maggie O’Callaghan, Moskowitz also credits the support that he received at home for helping to turn his grief into something positive.
“My parents have been incredibly supportive,” he says. “Since the event they wanted to help me come to terms with it, and they’re proud of how I’ve been able to come out and speak about it more.”
Looking forward, he will continue to spread awareness through the One Love Club and plan events within his school as well as the larger community.
“The biggest thing that we do is to make the conversations about healthy relationships more casual,” Moskowitz concludes. “It’s obviously difficult to talk about relationship problems, and we want to make it so that people realize they are not alone. When we realize we can openly talk about our problems, it makes for a very healthy environment.”
For more information on the One Love Foundation, visit www.joinonelove.org
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