Hadiya Pendleton's Parents Create Foundation To Serve Youth

Hadiya Pendleton's Parents Create Foundation To Serve Youth
Nathaniel Pendleton and his wife Cleopatra Pendleton (R), parents of murdered Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton, listen to US President Barack Obama speak about gun violence as well as the economy at Hyde Park Academy in Chicago on February 15, 2013. The Pendletons were guests of Obama's at the State of the Union earlier this week. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Nathaniel Pendleton and his wife Cleopatra Pendleton (R), parents of murdered Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton, listen to US President Barack Obama speak about gun violence as well as the economy at Hyde Park Academy in Chicago on February 15, 2013. The Pendletons were guests of Obama's at the State of the Union earlier this week. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton said that the last three months have been an excruciatingly painful odyssey that has left her and her husband clinging “just to hold on.”

It was at the end of January she and Nathaniel A. Pendleton Sr. learned that their 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya, had been killed by gunfire in a Chicago playground while trying to avoid an afternoon winter rain. In the months that followed, the death of the high school honors student, who performed with her high school band at President Obama’s inauguration, has cast a national spotlight on urban violence.

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