Over 70 students graduate from Loring Job Corps

14 years ago

By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer

LIMESTONE — It was a full ballroom on Dec. 3 for the winter graduation ceremony of over 70 students from the Loring Job Corp Center. Straying from the traditional salutatory and valedictory speeches, graduates of the Loring Center select a student speaker well before the Pomp and Circumstance, and this year they chose Maria “Fatima” Depina.

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Maria Depina was chosen to be the student speaker of the Loring Job Corps Center Graduation on Dec. 3; she speaks Spanish, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese and English and is the first person in her family to receive a high school diploma.

“I came from this small island of Cape Verde that is located in the west coast of Africa, which most of you probably never heard of,” Depina light-heartedly told her audience. “It’s a country where if you have dreams or aspirations they would be hard to reach because there is no school and it’s very poor.”

Depina briefly told her story, of she and her six brothers were brought to the U.S. by her mother who thought that it would be easier for her children to reach their goals in America.

“It wasn’t like that, because I had to struggle with a place to live, finding food and all those things needed for basic living,” Depina said.

At the age of 16, she found herself in a foster home where not only did she miss her family, but she was teased because she could barley speak English.

Her stay at the Loring Job Corps Center was difficult and she did give up once, but at the urging of Job Corps staff she came back and graduated, having achieved her high school diploma, her medical office support training and nurses assistant certification. After graduation, Depina plans on entering the workforce as a CNA and working toward college to become either a registered nurse or a translator, as she speaks Spanish, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese and English.

“There were days along the way that she learned that not only was she gaining the academic and technical skills she needed to become a graduate, but maybe more importantly in some ways, she gained the confidence and self motivation to achieve her goals,” said Center Director Kristie Moir “We have all watched her grow and blossom into a young lady and professional that we are all very proud of.”

“This graduation is not an ending for me but a beginning, like a doorway to my future,” Depina said.

fs-ljc grad-dc1-ar-49Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Right, Dan MacDonald, center director of the Eastern Aroostook Alternative High School, was the guest speaker at the Loring Job Corps Center Graduation on Dec. 3.

Guest speaker at the event Dan MacDonald, center director of the Eastern Aroostook Alternative High School also presented a speech to the Loring Job Corps Center Winter Graduating Class of 2010; he encouraged the students not to be afraid of failure, push themselves along the way, never become complacent in their educational pursuits.

He finished his speech with a little ‘fatherly advice:’ “To be happy in life you will need to have a good balance between your work and personal life. While it is important to do the best job you can and continually strive to be the best, you also have to make sure you are taking care of yourself and your business at home,” MacDonald said. “If you can make a living doing something you enjoy then you are very fortunate, but always keep in mind that ‘we do not live to work, but instead we work to live.’”

Local graduates of the most recent graduating class of the Loring Job Corps Center include Christopher Bechard, Ashlyn Clark, Jeffery Cook, Corey Gagnon, Melissa Green, Zachary Scott and Nicole Wilcox, all of Caribou, and Courtney Cloney and Zachary Tounzen, both of Fort Fairfield.