Chelsea Fearce has definitely lived up to her last name. A strong young woman who beat insane odds, she will be graduating high school this Thursday at the top of her class and heading to Spelman College in the fall, all while being homeless for much of her high school career.
WSBTV, a local Georgia station, reports Fearce, her three siblings and her mother Reenita Shephard often found themselves homeless because they were frequently evicted due to Shephard’s losing jobs. The Georgia student remembers reading books using the light of her cellphone in homeless shelters. There were other times where she and her family lived out of their car when there wasn’t space in the shelters or they couldn’t take it any more.
Still, Fearce scored a 1900 out of 2400 on her SATs and has a 4.466 GPA. When times were hard, she held on to her mother’s lessons on the importance of perseverance and stayed with her books. Not an easy thing, considering she faced hunger. She told News One, “[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.” Her focus and drive paid off; Fearce took enough honors and college-level classes in high school that when she enters Spelman in the fall, she’ll be a junior.
Fearce isn’t the only successful person in her family. Her younger sister will be graduating high school as well and is set to be salutatorian. Congratulations to Chelsea, her sister, and proud mother Reenita.