Age 25 · Massachusetts
“I don’t want people to stop hearing her name. I want everyone to say her name.”
– Rachel, Alyssa’s friend
Alyssa Richardson was the kind of person who walked into a room and made it brighter. Her family and friends called her Lys, and they describe her as pure sunshine. Playful, witty, sarcastic in the best way – the kind of person who could make you laugh till you cried, and then make sure you got home safe.
She had an artist’s eye and a helping heart. Alyssa loved her Cricut machine, and whenever a friend got engaged or a baby shower needed planning, she went all in making custom merch. She never took credit for any of it.
“Alyssa was loyal, loving, and unstoppable,” says her friend Hannah.
She was spontaneous and free-spirited. Once she showed up to a gathering wearing a shower cap and goggles, for no good reason; her friends still laugh about it. In a store once, she caught her friend Hannah’s eye and loudly asked if she’d remembered to bring the plunger.
“Laughter was her love language,” says her friend Rachel.
At 25, Alyssa was at the height of her life. She had a job she loved and a dream apartment lined up. Their family had just returned from celebrating her mother’s 60th birthday in Florida – a full week together with her whole family in one place.
“She had everything going for her,” says her mother, Dawn. “Everything was lined up.”
On Mother’s Day, she was gone.
Alyssa was healthy and active, with a clean bill of health from an annual checkup just ten days before she passed. It took six months for her family to receive an autopsy result. The cause was a sudden cardiac arrest – without prior symptoms, and without any sign that anything was wrong.
In the days that followed, a friend at Alyssa’s funeral mentioned starting a fund in her honor, and her family knew immediately that a foundation in her name was the right thing to do. It started with a golf tournament. Today, the Alyssa Richardson Foundation awards a scholarship to a graduating senior heading to Merrimack College, and now includes a contribution to the SADS Foundation.
Her best friends Rachel and Hannah run the foundation now. They think about her constantly. They don’t want a year to pass where her name isn’t spoken.
“It scared me going into the first year where she wasn’t with us,” says Rachel. “I didn’t want to be in a timeline without her. I don’t want people to stop saying her name.”
So help us say her name: Alyssa Richardson. Sunshine, artist, loyal friend, and the reason more families might get the answers she never had the chance to receive.