Trina Shealy: "I'm constantly praying."
On her way to prep and clean Payne Whitney Gym for the Yale hockey team, 55-year-old Trina Shealy prayed for more recreational opportunites for young New Haveners — not just for Ivy Leaguers.
“My son’s been shot three or four times,” the mother of two said.
“Get some buildings, get something for these kids to do,” she pleaded while standing beside the nine-story massive athletic facility of swimming pools, basketball courts, running tracks, polo practice rooms and fencing facilities.
Shealy woke up as usual at 3:30 a.m. for a 5 a.m. shift getting the gymnasium ready for Yale students and university affiliates. She took a moment Thursday morning to talk on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
The word on the street, Shealy said, is “stop the violence.”
“The shooting, the killing, parents burying their kids — it needs to stop. Enough is enough.”
Shealy said she keeps busy by working long hours, caring for her kids and grandchildren, protecting her family against Covid-19, playing spades and singing at church. She said she worries that younger individuals are involving themselves in criminal activity because they don’t have enough to do. Once people get a record, she noted, it’s even harder to find a job to sustain or occupy themselves.
“There’s not enough activities, not enough for the kids to do … What about the kids that are out here and got nothing?”
Shealy, who lives on Winchester Avenue, has lived in the city for the last 40 years, She said that there used to be more community in New Haven.
“We didn’t have to worry about leaving our bikes” on the side of the street, she said. Shealy was raised with neighbors who were always “watching out for each other.” Her father was a preacher of faith at a Baptist church.
Shealy declined to speak about the shootings her son had been involved in, but shared that her other child is currently a licensed practical nurse in school studying to become a registered nurse.
“I love ‘em both,” she said, adding that she now has two grandkids as well.
Hopefully the city will invest in stronger support systems for “the next generation,” whether that’s public computer classes, as she suggested, or better reentry programming.
In the meantime, Shealy said, she will “pray for our kids, our young Black kids.”
“That’s all we can do in New Haven, all over — the war’s going on, all we can do is just pray,” she said.
“I’m constantly praying.”
Watch the full interview below.