Listen Live
St. Jude Give Monthly 2024
Praise 104.1
CLOSE

If you’re in need of an inspiring story, we have one for you: Meet the Shepard sisters, a trio of homeless sisters who are achieving big things. Brooke (8), Rainn  (10) and Tai Shepard (11), are siblings who despite living in a shelter in Bushwick, Brooklyn, are headed to the Junior Olympics in Houston, Texas. 

According to Jezebel, the sisters live with their mother, 46-year-old Tonia Handy, who works as a phone operator at a car service, who saw tough times when their half-brother was murdered. The Associated Press wrote that soon afterwards,  Hardy and her family was evicted from their Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment for failing to pay the rent, and then placed in motel shelter in Queens and then another shelter in Brooklyn. 

“The first time we got there, there was just roaches everywhere,” Tai says. “Every time I looked on the floor, a roach. And every time I looked on the ceiling there was a roach. It was horrible.”

But with the help of a babysitter, the girls got involved in track, which apparently didn’t involve any entrance fees, and they quickly caught the eye of the famed Jeuness Track Club. The owner of the club Jean Bell was impressed by the young girls, who had no idea they were all related. By the end of the first day, Bell gave her business cards to each of the girls separately with the instructions to have their mother call or just show up to practice, the AP noted. 

And with hard work and lots of practice, the sisters found themselves qualifying for the Junior Olympics in multiple events, including the 3,000-meter run, the 800, the 1,500 and the high jump.

Werk!

Sadly, their mother won’t be traveling with her girls down South. 

“I’m not going because the shelter has a curfew and I still have to work,” Handy says. “It’s not that kind of job where you can take time off. You don’t go, you don’t get paid.”

However, Hardy is clear that this will be life-changing for her daughters. “This is a means to get them to college to opening doors that maybe I can’t open for them,” she said.

Want to help the sisters get to the Junior Olympics? Donate to their GoFundMe page.

DON’T MISS:

#BlackGirlMagic: Track Star Fails To Make Olympic Team, But Breaks World Record Weeks Later

#BlackGirlMagic: Two African-American Swimmers Make History, Head To Olympics In Rio

#BlackGirlMagic: Simone Biles & Gabby Douglas Named To U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Team

#BlackGirlMagic: Brooklyn Sisters Go From Homeless Shelter To Junior Olympics  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com