Christina Sheppard is the founder and Executive Director of the Virgil Louie Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to healing through horses in Morrow County, Ohio.

Christina remembers being happy once — curious about life, open to the world. After her parents divorced, her childhood was marked by abuse and instability that changed her. She became the quiet child in the back of the classroom, afraid of the adults around her, learning early how to stay small and survive. She understands from the inside what trauma does to a child — how it silences them, how it follows them, and what it takes to finally begin to heal.

Her brother Virgil was raised by their father in Marengo, Ohio. But the family's pain found him too. At fifteen he was introduced to drugs by an adult who should have protected him, and for years he fought to get sober. Whenever he tried, he came home to Marengo. Home was where healing felt possible. Virgil passed away in 2017, and his loss became the foundation of something Christina had to build.

She built the Virgil Louie Foundation because she knows what it means to be a child that the system almost helped but didn't. She built it because she watched her brother reach for sobriety over and over without the right support waiting for him. She built it because Morrow County deserves a place where children healing from abuse can find safety, where adults fighting addiction can find community, and where horses who have only known fear can simply be allowed to heal.

Christina brings to this work a professional background as strong as her personal conviction. She has studied early childhood development and has spent years providing hands-on compassionate care to vulnerable adults in assisted living facilities. As a former business co-owner and experienced manager, she has demonstrated the operational discipline, leadership, and financial responsibility required to build and sustain an organization. She understands what it takes to manage people, resources, and competing priorities — and she brings that same focus and accountability to every aspect of the Virgil Louie Foundation.

Christina Sheppard is not simply someone with a powerful story. She is a capable, determined leader who has spent a lifetime — knowingly and unknowingly — preparing to build exactly this.

She is a proud mother and a lifelong Ohioan.