FASTEST Sisters Go From Homeless To Jr. Olympic Stars

[Music] on the track it's easy to see the shepard's sisters are special sisters who discovered track and field about the same time last year they and their single mother fell on hard times last september they lost their apartment when mom just couldn't keep up with rising rent now in a new apartment tanya has a new job i knew that it just it was going to be a better life for us [Music] so i am here cooking for three hungry athletes most days they will roll out of bed into their clothes and go either to the corner store to get a bacon egg or cheese or go to school and eat it's only because they really cherish their rest time they get off the tracks here about eight at night every night when they get home it's a mad dash to doing homework and studying and preparing for the next day why is it shine ty you have testing today thank you you always the first one okay no one wants my eggs mom's the [Music] the shepherd girls are naturally gifted athletes and i think that they would do well in any sport but they're especially geared to running track i just turned 13 so i'm doing 200 hurdles now it is hard tai the oldest shepherd is the most able-bodied of the three because she can sprint as well as run distance she does anything from the print hurdles to the 800 meters she's very very determined and focused not just in track but in school and in everything she does at my age girls are usually like hanging out with boys or texting all the time but we practice four times a day rain the middle child was always good but we didn't recognize it actually at first we had her in the shorter distances but now she runs the fifteen hundred and the three thousand we had i think six four hundred um that's it i know use bridges get a slack not fair brooke has turned out to be a distance runner she started out in the high jump but she is more geared to running the 800 and the 1500 well they really make sure that we are on point and that we have the hardest workout that um that is allowed so i'm pretty sure nobody else trains like us you are so ready when did you do your homework last night yeah i don't know they don't utilize their breaks um like they should i've been telling them time is everything you know brooklyn is a great place to live i mean right now it's a hot spot it's gotten very expensive i was working a low-income job and for a single parent like myself i wasn't getting the uh the help i needed thank you sweetie thank you please kiss have a blessed day okay we fell on really hard times because of that because of the rin hike because i did i couldn't make ends meet with the low income job the rent kept going up and our landlord just didn't want to work with me and for that we became homeless mom works answering phones at a brooklyn car service but it doesn't pay much and she fell behind on the rent that's how they got evicted that's how they ended up at the homeless shelter it's horrible um lots of it's infested it's unsanitary the first that's something that i had to do i had no choice i don't have family members um here in brooklyn that i could live with and the girls were born in brooklyn i didn't want to leave i didn't want to uproot them because even though it's expensive here they have the best opportunities they've been there since 2015 after a half brother was killed and mom tanya fell on hard times this is my older brother when he was younger he he got shot but we you know we have a picture of him i lost my son to gun violence he would have been 21 this year what i find difficult is the quiet moments i feel very lucky to have three girls in my life who can't stop talking can't stop moving they reward me with that and i feel blessed a couple of months before he was killed he brought the girls sneakers they ran those sneakers down to the ground i don't know if that's the reason they're so successful in track now like the wind beneath their wings sort of story the time that we became homeless the girls got on a track team we were actually given the support group to get past the obstacle that we was about to run into i grew up in this community in a low-income housing project and i know the struggles of poverty and i knew when they came on the team what they were going through so the parents and the girls on the team the coaches all came together to assist them with whatever they needed they're pretty much on their feet now but we're always there for them jeunesse drag club the team i started 33 years ago there wasn't a lot going on back then especially for girls boys had football and basketball and baseball and girls had cheerleading i guess some people say i'm a hard taskmaster two members stay up in there i believe that all children rise to what's expected of them if you give them great expectations you'll get great results are you kidding me you can't coddle people if you want them to be the best were you aware that they were on the track getting ready to do tomorrow run is that what yeah yeah so why weren't you winning and that's not just being the best of track is being the best person that they can be the best woman that they could be the best student that they can be and that's what i insist on track gives us hope and strength to move on from our problems they also found success winning medals landing magazine covers through their track successes came people wanting to know about them and hear about their story one of the people that found the girls and wanted to do their story it was whoopi goldberg and the view tanya tyler said he's going to find you and your girls a place to live and pay your rent for the next two years tyler perry he's actually paying my rent for a couple of years and she's helping me to save money it takes a lot to get out of that mindset and to realize that you can make it on your own it's a struggle but it's possible the girls helped me to keep going their story is so inspiring and their passion and their drive it makes me feel like it's never the end of something unless you stop trying there's no end to it and they motivate me every day always know that there's light at the end of the tunnel you just have to persevere you

Channel: Whistle

Views: 1,498,035

Keywords: track and field, track and field 2018, track and field sheppard sisters, track and field high school, track and field olympics, track and field junior olympics, sheppard sisters, sheppard sisters track, sheppard sisters junior olympics, sheppard sisters homeless, no days off, no days off jaylen huff, no days off titan lacaden, no days off tamari davis, no days off stanley anderson, no adys off neiko primus, track and field motivation, whistle sports, the whistle

Id: eFH7lQWHegk

Length: 8min 7sec (487 seconds)

Published: Tue May 01 2018