{"id":21566,"date":"2013-05-27T14:21:29","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T18:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21566"},"modified":"2013-05-27T14:21:29","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T18:21:29","slug":"homeless-georgia-teen-graduates-as-valedictorian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21566","title":{"rendered":"Homeless Georgia Teen Graduates As Valedictorian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a life of adversity, poverty, and even homelessness, 18-year-old <strong>Chelesa Fearce<\/strong> is blazing a trail of academic success. Growing up in Clayton County, Georgia, <strong>Chelesa<\/strong>, along with her mother and three siblings, frequently moved from shelter to shelter, even living in her family\u2019s car in times of need.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the obstacles in the way, <strong>Chelesa<\/strong> stayed focused on her goals: scoring high marks in high school and attending a good college.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday <strong>Chelesa<\/strong> graduated with a 4.529 GPA from Charles Drew High School in Clayton County, making her class valedictorian. Thanks to taking college courses for the past two years, <strong>Chelesa<\/strong> will enter Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia later this year as a junior.<\/p>\n<p>During <strong>Chelesa\u2019s<\/strong> high school years, her mother, <strong>Reenita Shepard<\/strong>, was laid off from her job more than once, resulting in the family losing their home. But <strong>Chelesa<\/strong> stayed focused on her studies even when bouncing from shelter to shelter, or on those most difficult nights spent in the car.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt night I just had to open my book in the dark and use my cellphone light, just do what I had to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a life of adversity, poverty, and even homelessness, 18-year-old Chelesa Fearce is blazing a trail of academic success. Growing up in Clayton County, Georgia, Chelesa, along with her mother and three siblings, frequently moved from shelter to shelter, even living in her family\u2019s car in times of need. Regardless of the obstacles in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}