- Date Of Birth: July 8, 1988
- Date Of Death: November 30, 2020
- State: New Jersey
A beloved daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and friend left this world on Monday, November 30th, at 32 years of age. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 8, 1988, Courtney grew up in Princeton and Burlington, NJ where she attended All Saints Grammar School and was awarded the President’s Medal for Academic Achievement.
Courtney graduated from Princeton Day School in 2006. She studied piano, and voice at Westminster Choir College for many years where she was part of their Cantus Choir.
She graduated cum laude from The College of New Jersey in 2010, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Spanish. Courtney was inducted into the Golden Key Honor Society, and Psi Chi National Psychology Honor Society. As a Psychology Honors student, Courtney was a research assistant in the Memory and Aging Lab, followed by a psychology externship at the William James Psychology Building at Harvard University’s Emotion Health and Physiology Lab. In 2012, she was awarded a Masters degree in Counseling from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, became a Certified Yoga Therapist while there, inducted into the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society, and Kappa Delta Pi International Education Honor Society. A straight “A” graduate student, Courtney became a Licensed Associate Counselor in 2016 helping children, teens, and adults in the Cherry Hill area and was an adjunct professor in the psychology department at The College of New Jersey.
Her passion was yoga and the mind-body connection, having taught yoga in Princeton at Gratitude Yoga, Yoga Above, and Honor Yoga, as well as yoga studios in Southern New Jersey, and Los Angeles. One of her projects was teaching yoga to underprivileged children in Trenton. She was a talented yogi with many followers.
Courtney had great faith in the Lord as evidenced by her care, love, and concern for others. Some of her projects included working with children at the Puerto Rican Daycare Center in Trenton, and doing chair yoga for seniors at a nursing home in Los Angeles. She insisted on changing her assigned clinical counseling hours to work with high school students whose parents were in gangs or were in gangs themselves and counseled them regarding coping skills, including yoga and meditation. Courtney asked to be transferred from Beverly Hills High School while in her master’s program training to a Latino high school in East LA where the primary language was Spanish. Courtney was always reaching out and pushing herself to go to areas most people do not want to go, to for purpose of helping others.
She was also a dancer, singer, writer, and artist. Courtney excelled in every area of her life, and combined intellect, art, and passion in every endeavor. Highly spiritual and compassionate, a docent at Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum, a lover of animals, the beach, and all of nature, she was a beautiful soul. She especially loved her dogs, Trixie and Tommy. She loved to travel, having been to Nairobi, Kenya (to help reintegrate enslaved women into society), Ecuador, Mexico, Israel, London, and throughout the U.S
She is survived by her father, Clayton E. Leopold, MD of Princeton, her mother Joyce Solero, her step-father Ivan Solero, and her grandparents Dolores and John Zalewski ( “Babci and Dziadzi”) of Burlington, NJ. She was preceded in death by grandparents Carol and Harvey Leopold of New York City.
She will be deeply missed by her family, clients, and her many yoga students, and all who knew her. Courtney always reminded us that springtime was a time of rebirth and renewal. Therefore a Celebration of Life service and memorial will be held in the spring and more information will be posted at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting that a donation be made in Courtney’s name when a foundation in her name is created in the spring.
