INDIANAPOLIS — It's been more than few years since the clients at the Quality Life Adult Day Services have heard their names read out loud and walked up to the front of the room to be recognized for their hard work.
Most are decades removed from high school.
On the day before Thanksgiving, clients at The Jerry Wade Center donned graduation caps and took another walk, similar to the one from their younger days, but different.
This time these folks have a lot more classes under their belts from a school called "life."
"It brings back a lot of memories and a smile on my face," Leon James Howard said.
"I think a lot of them was really excited about it, 'cause when I told them I was doing it, they was excited and when I showed them the hats, they was really excited," explained the center's activities director, Andria Valentine,
Valentine said she came up with the idea for a graduation and class reunion after learning some of the center's clients had never had one.
"So I said, 'You know what? We're going to have our own class reunion," Valentine said.
For Linda Hernandez, who quit school to help provide for her family, it was a moment she never dreamed of experiencing.
"I got up to the eighth grade," Hernandez said.
When Hernandez came to the center three years ago, she couldn't walk.
"I was in a scooter for the first year and a half," she recalled.
The center's then-director, longtime Indianapolis DJ "The Loverman" Jerry Wade encouraged Hernandez to keep trying.
"He kept saying, 'Linda, you can walk. C'mon,'" she said.
Wade passed away unexpectedly last January, but his impact on the center and its clients is still felt deeply.
"I look at that picture and say, 'That's my baby. That's my baby,'" Queen Webster said.
"I miss him. We miss him," Hernandez added.
Wednesday, Hernandez thought of Wade as she finally got to feel what it's like to walk to the front of a room and be recognized, with friends and family cheering her on.
"It made me feel real special," she said.
"This was the Jerry Wade graduation class. The people who maybe never had a graduation, but they have one today," said Wade's sister, Daryl Wade, who is also a client at the center. "He's smiling down at us. He's really hoping that we are enjoying life."
These clients say they are — especially getting the chance to celebrate a graduation.
And what would any graduation ceremony be, if not for the graduation party that comes next?
"We are so very proud of all of you," someone shouted to the clients, as music started playing.
It was a song Wade frequently played when he hosted dance parties for clients, a favorite among them, Bill Withers' "Lovely Day."