New foundation to honor the life of Justin Accardi

On Justin Accardi’s birthday last year, his two best friends Prerika Chawla and Marcelle Saulnier took him out to brunch in downtown Los Angeles. They spent the day exploring the city and wandering through the dim maze of books in The Last Bookstore. The three friends had bonded over a sketch comedy group their freshman year, so celebrating the day surrounded by words, history and art couldn’t have been more perfect.

One year later, Accardi would have been 21 years old.

“I still remember that [day] and feel happy, but it’s just so sad that this year’s different,” said Saulnier, a junior majoring in creative writing and French.

Accardi passed away Sept. 5. He had battled depression for many years and died by suicide. 

In honor of their son, Selena and Jim Accardi have launched a foundation that will provide grants and scholarships for students studying cinematic arts. Accardi’s parents officially announced the foundation’s launch Monday, what would have been his 21st birthday. The Justin Accardi Foundation for the Arts will provide funding for student projects and films “that capture Justin’s visionary spirit and reflect his positive impact through the arts,” the website read.

“He had such a passion for music and cinema and media and was also just naturally brilliant, just naturally intelligent,” said Selena Accardi, Justin’s mother. “[He] cared about the world and politics and nature and the environment and just everything. When you have a child like that from an early age, it makes you pay attention to things bigger than yourself.”

Chawla, a junior majoring in cognitive science, was the initial founder of the sketch comedy group that led her to connect with Justin. She had reached out to people over Facebook to encourage them to join and gather ideas for the group. Accardi was one of the first people to respond.

“He just messaged me with a whole list of ideas that we could do for our sketches, and through that, since we’d be meeting every week and just trying to make new videos and content, we’d … write a lot of jokes all the time,” Chawla said. “We just became super close from that.”

From that point on, Chawla and Accardi’s friendship grew out of their shared love for acting and comedy. Creativity was something that enthralled both of them, and they spent hours together bringing their ideas to life through sketches and videos. Their favorite activities included watching films or old episodes of “Seinfeld” and having long, in-depth talks about what they thought. 

“We were in the same Intro to Cinema class and after every movie we watched, it would take me a few minutes to still decide whether I even liked the movie or not, but he had a full-blown analysis already ready of the movie and all of its pros and cons, and what he thinks about that,” Chawla said. “So it used to be really fun to talk to him about anything creative.”

Though the foundation is new, Accardi’s parents hope to give at least one scholarship to a student at their son’s high school, Cherry Hill High School East in Cherry Hill, NJ, where he cultivated his passion for performing arts. Ultimately, however, they hope the money will go toward students at USC and from the surrounding community.

“We want to make sure that the students that receive the scholarships are somebody that uphold his values, that believe in the industry, [that they] aren’t looking to go into the industry because [they want to] make a lot of money,” Jim Accardi said.  “It’s really about making an impact in the work they want to do.”

UnderSCore a Capella, a student organization that Justin was a part of, began a fundraiser in November. It started as a GoFundMe for the recording of a tribute song titled “Say Love” but flourished into a larger fundraiser to support the foundation.

“Justin was a unique person and no one will ever be quite like him, but there are so many other people out there who are just as passionate and just as ready to pursue their creative ideas,” Saulnier said. “We should be able to create without limits and without restriction and without fear because I think there’s something really beautiful in just being able to go for what you believe in. I know that he would have loved to see whatever comes of it and whoever gets to benefit from it.”