ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — 13-year-old Tristyn Bailey was known for many things, most notably, her loyalty to her family and friends.
“There are a lot of sad moments in every single day,” Stacy Bailey, Tristyn’s mother, said. “You just have to pick yourself back up.”
May 9 will mark three years since she was killed and taken from her family and friends. Her death has left a hole in the St. Johns County community.
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“The past year has really been a transition for us,” Forrest Bailey, Tristyn’s father, said. “We’ve gotten more and more aware that we’re going to grieve for the rest of our life.”
But her family’s healing journey only really began last summer after the two criminal trials tied to her death finally came to a close.
“We weren’t in that fight mode of that ‘we have to get up, and we have to fight for the justice system’ and trying to get through that,” Stacy said. “It was like I think last summer where we were like now what? Now what do we do? Who are we?”
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The family has since put all of their energy into the Tristyn Bailey Foundation.
“It’s allowed us as a family a way to begin to work on some of the foundation items and keep the memory of Tristyn in the things she was doing,” Forrest said.
Some of those foundation items include a partnership with Homeland Security for an online safety event for Project iGuardian. The event hosted Wednesday night brought in special agents to review topics, including tactics used by adult predators online, growing trends of sextortion, and how to protect yourself and your family on popular apps and social networks.
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They’ve also partnered with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office to host a number of self-defense classes. The course called Women Against Violent Encounters (W.A.V.E.) teaches young girls about situational awareness and how to properly defend themselves.
“It’s definitely giving us a purpose,” Forrest said. “It’s giving us a reason to keep her spirit out there and her name held high and see the good that she could have done to others.”
In November, the foundation will host its GALA and golf tournament at the St. Johns Golf and Country Club. Proceeds will benefit the foundation to host more workshops, self-defense courses, and funding for scholarships for higher education to students who exhibit the qualities that Tristyn admired.
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