Yes this is a 100% feel good story.  Deal with it.  When the politics and bs in the world get me down I like a story that shows how great people can be.  We had two classes of hero here:  The student who refused to fail, and the school and community that rallied behind her.

I saw this on Fox News, on Heartland, and tracked it down. 

Read it and weep.

Brandon High School Lifted Grad From Shadows

The call came into the main office at Brandon High School from a teacher who found a mess under portable classroom No. 24.

There was a cardboard box, about the size of a mattress. There were empty plastic water bottles and several wadded-up McDonald’s bags.

Assistant Principal Stephanie Davis was among those who went to investigate. She stood by the steps of the portable classroom while another administrator crawled through the narrow gap between the damp ground and the classroom floor.

They weren’t sure what they would find — perhaps a vagrant — but the mystery quickly unfolded piece by piece.

They found duffel bags, saturated by a recent rain and filled with sopping-wet clothes. They found a cushion that served as a makeshift pillow. Then they found a small Army ROTC uniform, wrinkled and ruined by mold and mud.

It wasn’t until they found a bag loaded with textbooks and assignments that it became clear who was living under the building, a few yards from the Brandon High gymnasium.

Davis recalled the revulsion she felt when she realized, “Oh my God, it’s a student.”

On Thursday afternoon at the Florida State Fairgrounds, Shawna Sutherland joined her classmates at the graduation ceremony for Brandon High seniors.

She is among the smallest students in her class at 5 feet tall, but on this day she stood among the tallest.

She is one of Brandon’s brightest, an honors student with a 4.6 grade point average and accomplishments that include membership in the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society and several top awards in Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.