From Grieving to Giving: One Community's 7-Year Odyssey to Healing

A new plaque hangs on the chain link fence at the Oxbow Farms basketball court, leaving no doubt the impact that Shantel Bailey's 16 years in this world made on an entire community.

Not just around the Rogers Lane neighborhood where she lived, played basketball, and tragically, was killed by a speeding motorist seven years ago.

Beyond these lanes, Shantel touched the lives of family, friends, and teammates from Newport to Portsmouth, and her family's journey from grief to healing has moved the hearts and minds of Aquidneck Island's communities and, perhaps, has even saved lives.

At the basketball courts where she once played with great joy, the new plaque dedicated recently in her honor reads, "This basketball court is dedicated to the memory of Shantel Nicole Bailey. May it inspire the champions in all of us."

On the night of Nov. 19, 2003, after visiting her grandmother, Shantel was walking from the bus stop outside the Oxbow Farms apartments when a Jeep allegedly doing 57 mph in a 35 mph zone on West Main Road struck her down before she could reach her Green Lane home just a street away. An investigation later faulted other road conditions besides speeding, including poor street lighting and visibility, and the traffic light there at the time. The driver was never charged.

Killed instantly at the scene, Shantel's body was taken directly to the morgue.

"That was the hardest part," recalled Monica Rogers, Shantel's aunt and active outreach coordinator for the Shantel Bailey Project. "There was no vigil at the hospital or prayers that she would make it. The first time I saw her after the accident was at the wake, and it was very, very hard for all of us to accept that she was gone."

Over the years, Shantel's family, neighbors and friends found a light through the tragic aftermath, focusing their energies on preventing such tragedy from ever happening again. By protecting others' sons and daughters. Not in their community. Not on their watch. They had learned that other deaths had occurred on the same road, so they approached the Middletown Town Council and Police Department to make the road safer and the town's response was rapid.

New signs, new sidewalks, and improved crosswalks and traffic lights soon followed, but motorists continued to treat the island's primary north-south connector like a freeway.

So a grieving community pressed on.

On Shantel's birthday and anniversary of her death for the last seven years, family, neighbors and friends have stood at the intersection near the bus stop where Shantel was killed, holding signs that urged motorists to "Slow Down," "Get off your cell phone," "Stop texting while driving" and "Leave 15 minutes earlier."

From there, the Shantel Bailey Project was born, followed by a website, 11 scholarships awarded to youths in Newport and Middletown in Shantel's honor, and family and friends' continued quest to educate the community on driver safety. Additionally, because sports, church, and community events were such important parts of Shantel's life and growth as a person, the Shantel Bailey Project has partnered with the local Boys & Girls Club, area Pop-Warner league, Martin Luther King Center in Newport, and Community Baptist Church in Newport to work with area youths.

The Shantel Bailey Project website's mission reads, "To enrich young minds and or the lives of young adults, whether it be physical, educational or spiritual."

"We've taken something so horrific and so negative and turned it into something so positive," said Lisa Stedford, Shantel's mother, who now lives in Newport with Shantel's father Chris Stedford and Shantel's three siblings, Jason, Chrisonya and Adrianna Bailey. "If we've saved one life out there, then we've done our job."

It's that kind of dedication that has snowballed into immediate and ever-growing support from the Middletown Town Council, Police and Fire departments, Boys & Girls Club of Newport County, Substance Abuse Task Force, and other area organizations.

Middletown Community Policing Officer Josh Mello said the Shantel Bailey Project reinforces all the key components that police officers strive to teach about highway and driving safety whenever there's a chance to educate the public. "We try to educate the public on how important it is to pay attention, slow down, stay safe and what the laws are," said Mello. "At that point, it's up to the people to follow the law, and that's why we're out there diligently with our traffic posts and constantly patrolling, so hopefully something like this tragedy never happens again."

"The amazing thing was that we really didn't have to reach out to the community that much," recalled Stedford. "The community actually grabbed onto us. Now, so many people know about the Shantel Bailey Project and that truly has been the greatest gift."

Most recently, the State of Rhode Island declared August 12 as Shantel Bailey Day at the petition of town council Vice-Chair Richard Cambra, a neighbor who lives a few blocks away and is often credited by Shantel's family for his repeated support.

"I always saw them out here with signs asking people to slow down, and that later turned into scholarships and these other positive things for the community, and the whole town is just completely behind them in this," said Cambra.

Patch recently spoke with Shantel's aunt, Monica Rogers, as well as Lisa Stedford, Shantel's mother, as they worked with numerous towns, Oxbow Apartments, and Aquidneck Island organizations to set up the first of many annual charitable community festivals to be held at Oxbow Farms every August 12^th, Shantel's birthday. "She would be 22 today," noted Rogers.

The 1^st Annual Shantel Bailey Day festival, held Thursday at the Oxbow Farms basketball court and park, was a conscientious celebration of how Shantel lived her life, incorporating her favorite pastime of basketball and love of family time among other things. It was also a day to demonstrate all the positive ways in which the community has come together these last seven years, learned from the tragedy, and strives to look forward to a safer future for children and motorists.

Part basketball tournament, part family cook-out, part highway safety awareness campaign, the event brought together Shantel's family, the police and fire departments, town government, Newport County Boys & Girls Club (of which Shantel was an active member), Substance Abuse Task Force, and the Oxbow Farms community. A moon bounce, bungee run, face-painting, music, food, raffle and silent auction to benefit the Shantel Bailey Project Scholarship Fund kept the celebration of life and giving at full tilt, with teens, adults and children from all over Newport County attending.

In June, the Middletown Town Council and State of Rhode Island also officially recognized Aug. 12, 2010, as "Shantel Bailey Day," choosing her birth date to honor the life she lived. Shantel's family has been in frequent contact with Corveno, Bay Management, which owns Oxbow Apartments and the town officials and local organizations in planning today's events, said Corveno.

"We really wanted to honor how she touched people's lives for the short time she was here," said Kari Corveno, the senior property manager at Oxbow Farms, who helped organize the event with Shantel's family. "And her family wanted to have activities that she would have really liked, or that when you see, you think of her and the joy she got from them."