“They’re not just planting a tree for Emily Finn… They’re planting an entire FOREST that will bloom PINK every spring for the rest of time.”

The 18-year-old ballerina who was murdered returning her ex’s hoodie is getting the most beautiful living memorial Long Island has ever seen:

1,000 pink dogwood trees
A hidden woodland amphitheater for dance performances
A trail called “Emily’s Twirl” where every visitor will hear her favorite song playing softly from hidden speakers

And the location? A secret clearing in a state forest that only locals know… until now. The first tree will be planted by her little brothers on what would have been her 19th birthday. Her mom whispered the real reason they chose dogwoods: “They bloom the exact shade of pink she wore to prom… the same dress in all those haunting photos.”

Wait until you see the renderings and the hidden message carved into the first bench. Full story + how YOU can sponsor a tree in her name →

She loved pink dogwoods more than roses. Every spring she would drag her mom and little brothers to Connetquot River State Park just to stand under the blooming canopy and spin in circles until she was dizzy, arms out like a ballerina en pointe. Now, starting next April on what would have been Emily Rose Finn’s 19th birthday, those same pink blossoms will cover an entire forest in her memory.

On Monday evening, the newly renamed Youth Peace & Justice Foundation (formerly the Uvalde Foundation for Kids) and Suffolk County Parks Department jointly announced one of the largest living memorials ever created for a teen victim of intimate-partner violence: 1,000 flowering pink dogwood trees to be planted across a secluded 22-acre parcel inside the Edgewood Oak Brush Plains Preserve in Deer Park — a site chosen because it sits almost exactly halfway between Emily’s hometown of West Sayville and the Nesconset street where she was killed on November 26, 2025.

The project, dubbed “Emily’s Grove – A Living Twirl,” will include:

A winding, wheelchair-accessible crushed-shell trail named “Emily’s Twirl” that forms the shape of a perfect pirouette when viewed from above
A natural outdoor amphitheater made of reclaimed Long Island cedar where local dance schools can hold free spring recitals forever
25 hand-carved cedar benches, each engraved with one of Emily’s own quotes pulled from her old Instagram captions (“Dance like the world is watching loves you,” “Kindness is free, sprinkle that stuff everywhere,” etc.)
Solar-powered hidden speakers that will quietly play her favorite classical pieces — “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” and her go-to audition song, “Clair de Lune” — whenever motion sensors detect visitors on the trail
A bronze statue at the entrance: Emily mid-arabesque, 8 feet tall, arms reaching skyward, wearing the exact magenta prom dress from the now-infamous photos

The announcement came during an emotional press conference outside the American Ballet Studio in Bayport, where pink ribbons still blanket every tree and railing. Cliantha Finn, Emily’s mother, stood between her two younger sons, ages 12 and 14, clutching a single dogwood sapling wrapped in pink burlap.

“We could have put up a plaque,” she told the crowd of 200 dancers, neighbors, and reporters. “But Emily wasn’t a plaque. She was movement. She was color. She was spring after the worst winter. So we’re giving her an entire forest that will bloom the same shade of pink she wore the night she felt most alive. Every April, when those trees explode into flower, she’ll be dancing again. No one can ever take that away.”

The $1.4 million project is being funded through a combination of the Emily Rose Finn Memorial Fund (the GoFundMe that has now surpassed $187,000), private donations from New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck (who trained at the same Long Island circuit as Emily), and a matching grant from Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine’s office. Any additional money raised will go toward free dance scholarships for underprivileged girls and mandatory healthy-relationship workshops in every Suffolk County middle and high school.

The first tree will be planted on April 11, 2026 — Emily’s 19th birthday — by her brothers, Michael Jr. and Logan, wearing the pink ties they wore to her funeral. The entire Sayville High School class of 2025 has pledged to show up in tutus and tuxedo T-shirts. The American Ballet Studio’s youngest students — the same ages Emily taught on Saturday mornings — will scatter petals instead of rice.

Perhaps the most poignant detail: the exact cultivar of dogwood chosen is “Cherokee Brave” — a variety known for its deep magenta-pink bracts that hold their color longer than any other. Landscape architect Maria Salvatore, who designed the grove pro bono, told Newsday, “When those trees hit peak bloom, the entire forest floor turns the color of Emily’s prom dress. From the air it will look like one giant pink tutu.”

Hidden along the trail will be a single bench facing a small pond. Engraved on its backrest, in Emily’s own handwriting (taken from a birthday card she once wrote her mom): “Oh sugar… keep spinning.”

The grove is scheduled to open to the public on Mother’s Day 2026. Until then, anyone can sponsor a tree for $250 through the memorial website EmilyTwirlsForever.org. Each sponsor receives a small pink dogwood sapling to plant in their own yard and GPS coordinates to “their” tree inside the grove so families can visit on anniversaries.

Emily’s best friend Katelyn Guterwill, the one who started the pink-ribbon movement the day after the shooting, wiped tears as she spoke to the crowd Monday: “People keep saying she’s gone. But every spring, when those thousand trees bloom at once? She’s going to be the loudest, brightest, most alive thing on Long Island.”

As the press conference ended, Cliantha Finn placed the sapling into the ground outside the studio — a preview planting — and whispered something only her sons could hear, and stepped back. Within seconds, a dozen 6-year-old ballerinas in tiny pink leotards ran forward and tied ribbons around its trunk.

Somewhere in the breeze, you could almost swear you heard laughter.