Listen to Sarah’s Story
UVA students and Charlottesville community members at the Take Back the Lawn candlelight vigil on the University of Virginia grounds.
“This is what our community looks like!”
August 17, 2017, at 9:42 PM
“It was a really overwhelmingly beautiful and emotional way to all come together to just hold that light and show others outside of Charlottesville that the events that happened the week prior were not Charlottesville”
- Sarah Fay
Interview Transcript
Sarah Fay
My name is Sarah and I have lived in Charlottesville for 17 years. This is more than just a place. It's my home. Charlottesville means so much to me, it's where my nearest and dearest friends are. It's where I've grown as an individual. It's where I've met my husband. It's where we've started our family. It's where we've bought our home. And it's just, it means so much to me. As we approach the five year anniversary of the August 11 and 12 events, I think about that experience as sheer trauma for for our special community. I was not in Charlottesville when those events occurred. My husband and I were traveling back to Charlottesville after being away for a weekend, and so being in touch with friends and hearing from them bits and pieces of the trauma and the terror that was happening was absolutely horrifying. Shortly after those events, about a week later, the university partnered with different organizations across grounds and the community to host a candlelight vigil and faculty, staff, students, community members, business owners, families, individuals, children, adults, young, old, all gathered together on the university grounds and walked through the university and up the lawn, singing and just coming together and holding these candles to think about those individuals that we lost during the riots and just to really demonstrate peace and unity. And it was a really overwhelmingly beautiful and emotional way to all come together to just hold that light and show others outside of Charlottesville that the events that happened the week prior were not Charlottesville. This community, again, is so special. So, so powerful, so meaningful, so interwoven and connected and hate has no home here.
Music credit: Bruce Brus / Thymotic Moments / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com