Listen Live
WERE AM Mobile App 2020

LISTEN LIVE. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

News Talk Cleveland Featured Video
CLOSE

Even though Chelesa Fearce (pictured) was homeless for most of her high school years, the young dynamo will still manage to graduate high school with honors on Thursday as its star student and the class valedictorian, reports WSBTV.

SEE ALSO: Teachers Credited With Saving Students In Okla.

During Fearce’s high school years, her and her family experienced multiple evictions because her mother, Reenita Shephard, had unsteady employment

Consequently, Fearce would often find herself having to read books in the dark with just her cell phone light illuminating the pages at local shelters. Fearce told WSBTV, “I just told myself to keep working, because the future will not be like this anymore,” she said. “You’re worried about your home life and then worried at school.”

But sometimes the shelters became too much, so that’s when the Clayton County, Ga., youth, Shephard; and her three siblings lived in their car.

Yet the experience didn’t stop Fearce, who also nailed her SAT’s with an impressive score of 1900 out of 2400, from achieving a GPA of 4.466. Her academic success empowered her to enroll in college courses for her last two years of high school, meaning when Fearce enters the prestigious Atlanta-based Spelman College in the fall, she will begin as a college junior.

Fearce’s success is especially significant when one considers that she maintained her stellar grades while dealing with hunger, “[You] worry about being a little hungry sometimes, [so you] go hungry sometimes. You just have to deal with it. You eat what you can, when you can.”

And Fearce isn’t the only shining star in her family; her sister is also graduating as her high school’s salutatorian.

Meanwhile, the proud Mom’s formula for her girl’s academic success is quite simple: books. Shephard says, “I read to them a lot, took them to the library. Everything was a learning experience.”

Watch Fearce talk about her experience and success here:

Fearce, in the meantime, has some pearls of wisdom to share for those peers who are in her shoes, “Don’t give up. Do what you have to do right now so that you can have the future that you want.”

Congratulations and keep reaching for those stars, Chelesa!

SEE ALSO: 10 Pieces Of Advice For Postcollege Life

Homeless Teen Graduates At Top Of Her High School Class  was originally published on newsone.com