Hometown Hero: Despite cancer diagnosis, Sharon Sheppard of Rockville Centre remains dedicated to helping kids, hungry families

If the light is on at the MLK Community Center in Rockville Centre, it’s a signal that Sharon Sheppard is inside — and all are welcome.

Sheppard, 56, of Rockville Centre, is the center’s assistant director. She oversees its free after-school program and enrichment activities, and is the creator of its food pantry, which is named after her.

Sheppard said many of the students in the after-school program come from single-parent homes and use the center as a “safe space” to congregate, even on the weekends. Since many of the program’s students are Black, Sheppard fills the library with books written by Black authors, so they feel represented.

“My goal is just to show these kids that they are loved, and they can be something without being on the streets,” Sheppard said.

The center’s director, Patrick Morris, said Sheppard has a “smile that lights up a room.” If someone is having a bad day and needs to talk, he said, her door is always open.

“You feel good to know that you can go somewhere and that she’s going to be there,” Morris said. “That’s big, when you know somebody’s consistent in your life.”

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Sheppard created a food pantry at the center. Nearly four years later, she said it provides at least 110 people from across Long Island with fresh produce, meat, milk and bread every week. It also serves the community on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

If anyone comes into the center, regardless of the day of the week, Sheppard said she will always try to help them, whether that’s sharing a resource or finding frozen meat in the freezer to give.

“I will never turn anybody down,” she said. “You don’t know what anybody’s going through.”

Unfortunately, Sheppard knows this firsthand.

In July 2020, Sheppard was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer and given three months to live.

But Dr. Francis Arena of NYU Langone Arena Oncology Associates in Lake Success gave her hope, telling her, “I cannot cure you, but I could give you years,” Sheppard recalled.

She took five months off from work while undergoing chemotherapy treatments. But ultimately, she returned to work.

“I was sitting in a chair and I said, ‘OK, is this how I want to do it? Do I want to just sit here and wait to die? Or do I want to continue to help the community?’ ” Sheppard said. “I’ve been back ever since.”

She has decreased her working hours as she undergoes hormone therapy every three weeks and takes two chemotherapy pills every day. But she said she makes sure to stay for the first half of the after-school program every day so the students can see her face and “don’t get worried.”

“Every day, I get up with a purpose,” she said. “If I could just touch one person and make a difference in one person’s life, that’s better than not doing anything at all.”