Charde Houston, who plays for the Minnesota Lynx, raised money for a 11-year-old girl and her younger brother after their mother was killed.

The story of a girl whose mother was gunned down along with a friend made Charde Houston want to help in any way she could. The 11-year-old girl, Aiyanna Bardwell, and her younger brother became homeless after their mother was killed by their father during November in San Antonio.

Houston, who plays for the Minnesota Lynx professional women’s basketball team, wanted to reach out to Aiyanna and her brother because she knows what it’s like to go through “some tough things.”

“But this exceeds anything I’ve been through,” Houston told the San Antonio Express News. She was once homeless herself. “When you face hardship, I know how important it is to have supporters around you.”

Houston used her Twitter account to raise money for Aiyanna and her brother. She asked people following her on the social networking web site to donate at least a few dollars.

In a little over a month, Houston raised at least $3,000.

She also made sure that Aiyanna and her brother had Christmas presents last month.  Houston’s kindness encouraged others to give, including a sports columnist with The Washington Post. Aiyanna and her brother, who are now living with their grandmother, also received  clothing and money from parents of teammates she plays basketball with.

Houston plans to get Aiyanna and her family tickets to a Minnesota Lynx game since Aiyanna dreams of making it to the WNBA one day. The money Houston helped collect for Aiyanna and her brother was the first initiative of Houston’s nonprofit organization, Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU).

On Houston’s Twitter account, she writes that she is passionate about helping others. She was the first in her family to attend college and played on the women’s basketball team at the University of Connecticut. She graduated with a sociology degree in 2008. She is currently playing basketball in France.

The WNBA Star Helps Girl Whose Mother Was Killed by Haven Magazine, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.