A pandemic photo essay entitled, Not Forgotten: The Yorktown Seniors of 2020, the idea came to Mendelsohn in the middle of the night. “Earlier in the day my daughter had tried on her Spring Fling dress and gone outside. I went into the street and took a few pictures and I felt sad for her. It’s crushing, all these rites of passages lost for these kids. Later on, I was lying in bed and scrolling through these endless Facebook posts of people sharing their high school yearbook photos to honor the Class of 2020.”
After that, the concept started to take form. Why not honor this year’s seniors by actually capturing them? “The next morning I emailed my neighbor, who knows everybody, and she reached out to five senior parents. That’s how we got the ball rolling.”
The project has received national acclaim and been featured in local and national news outlets including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, ABC News, The Washington Post, NBC News 4, WUSA 9 and Arlington Magazine.