Graduation day came. Unexpectedly, perhaps, for some. Or as a dream that had been lost or long deferred for others.

And the LINC team that honored these graduates of the Missouri Star School online program celebrated them and their families not just with cake, food and photo opportunities, but with a song.

Through every scar, every fall, every place I’ve been in — I’m still here breathing. Still finding my way . . .

The graduates — Gina Clark-Noear, Camella Cunningham, Victoria Ojeda and Victoria Wolfe, plus two who were unable to be at the ceremony, Marcella Begulia and Dior Williams — earned the special praise, said Fiona Stewart, a case manager in LINC’s Missouri Work Assistance Program.

That’s why Stewart played the song, Celebrate Me by IngaRose, for them.

. . . For the woman I became, through the hurt, through the pain, I still found my way.

I celebrate me . . .

The graduates successfully used Star School, working online with LINC’s team of certified teachers to complete high school graduation equivalency degrees. Star School students come either from the state’s Division of Youth Services as teenagers who couldn’t finish school at their home high school, or as parents in the Missouri Work Assistance program, pursuing chances for college education so they can gain self-sufficiency for their families.

“Don’t let them tell you it’s too late,” Victoria Ojeda said, speaking for the graduating class at the ceremony at the Morning Star Youth and Family Life Center in Kansas City. She’s on her way to being a certified medical assistant. “Don’t let fear convince you that you’re not capable.”

Before Ojeda had stepped to the podium, before the ceremony began, she’d taken her turn at the photo backdrop, posing with her three children, ages 7-to-10. And her oldest daughter, Serenity, imagining so many things possible now with her mother, said, “It’s going to be good, and she’s really beautiful.”

Gina Clark-Noear and her sister, Stacie, took turns holding onto Gina’s squirming, 2-year-old son, Kyri.

It’s this energetic child, Clark-Noear said, that kept her on track and got her to this graduation milestone. She’s now bound for college to study nursing.

“I worry about my son first,” she said. “I want the best for him. I want to spoil him.”

The evening marked restored dreams, like the achievement of graduate Victoria Wolfe, now a certified nursing assistant at a rehabilitation facility, who made a new start to support her four children, three between ages 11 and 14, and her 18-month-old daughter.

Victoria’s mother, Mary Wolfe, remembered when her daughter was a child and would go with her to the nursing home to visit Mary’s father. Mary always believed, watching how her daughter mimicked the care of the health care workers and looked after her grandfather, that she’d someday make a career of caring for people.

“It took a while, but she’s really jumped in,” Mary Wolfe said. “I’m so proud of her.”

In trying to describe her feelings, graduate Camella Cunningham talked of crossing a border, or coming out of a tunnel — a journey, she said, “from defeat to success.”

“There were times,” she said, “that I didn’t think I could do it.” She had stumbled from the course she is on now — heading for nursing school and a career in pediatrics.

But here she was, grateful for her case manager, and grateful for her fiancé, Zion Neal, and his family, joining in the celebration.

“I had people believing in me,” she said.

LINC’s team of Star School educators for many years had already been helping teens coming out of the state’s Division of Youth Services complete their education. The graduation ceremony marked an expansion of Star School, giving adults that LINC is supporting in the Missouri Work Assistance program a chance to complete their education paths.

This was the first combined graduation ceremony, said Missouri Star School Director Amy Holliday. And it’s a perfect match.

MWA’s mission is to help parents move off of state aid and into employment by helping them build skills and overcome barriers, said LINC MWA Program Supervisor Jayme Horn.

“Tonight is a powerful reflection of that mission,” she said. “It’s proof that determination is stronger than any obstacle.”

Stewart, who was the case manager for Clark-Noear, Ojeda and Wolfe, let Celebrate Me play out.

“This is a big deal,” Stewart said when the song was done.  “So many waste the opportunities they have, but you decided you are going to take the opportunity, and here you are. You have to celebrate yourself.”

And as the joy soaked in, Ojeda in her speech relished the assurance that the graduates share — that they are not only capable but worthy of the successes now and to come.