Maria Cachu has been waiting for this moment for a long time.
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"It's something. I can't believe it," Maria said.
The 38-year-old mother and wife grew up in Mexico and was only in school until 6th grade.
Then at 17, her family moved to Fresno and Maria enrolled at Fresno High.
But shortly after, her dad got into a car accident and needed care.
"I had to work. I had to help my dad," Maria said.
She dropped out of school and started working full-time.
She met her husband at 19 and got married at 21 before starting her own family.
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She was a stay-at-home mom raising her four children and supporting them in all of their activities, from baseball to football to cheer.
"We are busy all the time, but I enjoy doing that with them," Maria said.
When her youngest daughter started kindergarten, her husband encouraged her to take the citizenship test. After passing, she was motivated to do more.
"I said I need to do something else. I need to improve myself. Do something better for me, for my life," Maria said.
She started working part-time, and eventually full-time, at Bass Lake Unified School District.
She started learning English as a second language at Yosemite Adult School. She walked to class because she doesn't have a driver's license.
Shortly after, despite her children's many activities, she started pursuing the high school degree she never received with the help of Adult Education Teacher Kathy Kabbani.
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"Maria is one of the kindest, hardest working people that I know," Kabbani said.
For the last three years, Maria has worked hard to complete all of her assignments.
Maria says when it got tough, Kabbani was there to encourage her to keep going.
"I kept saying you know you can do this. You got it. It may not be as quickly as you want it to be, but it's not a race," Kabbani said.
Now with her name among the graduating class of 2024, she hopes it proves to her children and others that they can do anything they want to do.
"Now I can say I'm done with a lot of hard work, but I'm happy for that," Maria said.
Maria will graduate on June 6 alongside about 20 of her classmates. After that, she hopes to get her driver's license and eventually go to cosmetology school.
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