6 sisters attending Long Island university together with dreams of opening nursing center
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. -- Six sisters, two years apart, are all studying nursing together at Adelphi University, and by all accounts, they're inseparable.
CBS New York's Long Island reporter Jennifer McLogan introduces us to the remarkable Lawrence sisters.
If you ask a question, you'll get a simultaneous answer from the six Lawrence sisters -- Nathalia, Danielle, Dominique, Alexsandria, Lauren and Gabriella.
"It's a whole support system that I thank God for, and I'm just really happy to be with my sisters," said youngest sister Nathalia Lawrence.
When professors call attendance, the siblings can predict what's about to happen.
"'Cousins? Are you friends?' 'We're sisters.' 'Sisters!?'" Alexsandria Lawrence said.
"'Oh yeah, 'cause you guys are like sorority sisters?' We're like, no, we're biological sisters. They're like, 'All of you!?' And, like, yeah, all of us," Danielle Lawrence said.
Spotted running down hallways and racing up steps with contagious energy that's instilled, they say, by their parents; their dad is a former minor league ballplayer.
"We went regular school and home school, so when we went to home school, he said you know what, you guys go take the GED and then so we can put you guys in college and that's how the whole thing started," oldest sister Dominique Lawrence said.
They received degrees in public health from SUNY schools, then together earned scholarships to Adelphi based on their good grades.
"I am very proud of them. They have faced great adversity, so they really are wonderful role models and mentors for other students," said Deborah Hunt, Dean of Nursing at Adelphi.
The sisters' obstacles included overcoming homelessness and housing insecurity. They are now temporarily living with relatives in Brooklyn.
"It's better than a shelter, that's the best way to put it," Lauren Lawrence said.
They say blessed with a strong faith, nursing and helping others is their calling.
"You give that sense of calm to the family members. You are the middleman, and you're that road to healing," Gabriella Lawrence said.
The sisters tutor each other on their path to medicine, and outside nursing -- track, softball, cooking and following current events.
"And now we're meeting you -- we watch you on the news all the time," Dominique Lawrence told McLogan.
Six sisters who want to give back.
"We can open a practice together," Gabriella Lawrence said.
The Lawrence sisters have four more semesters to go. They might begin in an ICU or emergency room, but they vow to be together until they open what they hope will be the Lawrence Sisters Nursing Center.