Mike Tertsea, of Nigeria, wanted to study and play basketball in America. When he found the John Carroll School in Bel Air, Maryland, he had to leave his mother and family in Africa to study abroad. 

Mike graduated this week from John Carroll.

And his mom was there to see him get the diploma.

Mike’s senior class raised money for her plane ticket and visa so that she could see him walk across the stage with a high school degree. 

She was so thankful and said her son, whom she hasn’t seen in four years, "is big, bigger, too big…I didn’t recognize him he was so big and he put on weight”. 

But when the senior class came up a few hundred dollars short, Mike's teachers and coaches raised the rest of the money within an hour. 

Mike's mom didn’t think she’d see this day. Mike never thought he’d look out and see mom in the audience. But John Carroll students take care of their own.