The Student Government Association hosted a memorial for SLU student and SGA member Jade DiMartino, who passed on Wednesday, May 14.
Several people provided remarks on DiMartino’s life, including her parents, friends, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Eric Summers and SGA President Maria Nechaeva.
To honor her life, SGA made a plaque dedicated to DiMartino, highlighting her impact on the Southeastern community.
“Jade and I were friends for five years. She helped me find friends and find a community at Southeastern…She left a very big impact on my art career and encouraged my creativity to know no bounds,” sophomore art major Kennedy Warning said. Warning read a poem dedicated to DiMartino during the memorial.
Summers spoke about DiMartino’s community impact, both personally and in the Student Government Association.
“Today, we gather because Jade touched our hearts, she left fingerprints…leave a fingerprint, just like Jade,” Summers said.
DiMartino’s parents also spoke about her impact on campus and how her time at SLU affected her personal development.
“This campus gave her the space and opportunity to grow into who she became, and I can’t help but think that’s due almost entirely to the people here. Every university is essentially the same, but it’s the people who really set this one apart. The impact all of you had on her, I think, was just as profound as the one she may have had on you,” Dimartino’s mother said.
After the memorial, Nachaeva and Chief Justice Kayla Edwards unveiled a plaque at the Student Leadership and Government Office dedicated to DiMartino.
“We knew each other for a year and a day, exactly. She was my best friend…if there are such a thing as platonic soulmates, I think that’s what we were,” junior creative writing major Aidan Parks said, who also spoke at the memorial.
Students can call the University Counseling Center’s ViaLink crisis hotline at 833-603-0008 to speak with a trained specialist. Students, faculty and staff, alongside their families, can schedule appointments in the UCC just outside the breezeway, and can check their appointments in the UCC Patient Portal in the Google Apps list.
