It’s now been five years since the Northern St. Louis County Mental Health Court started helping people change their lives.

A celebration on Tuesday at the courthouse in Hibbing gave people a chance to reconnect and share stories.

Almost 30 people have graduated from the program, and are living healthier, happier lives now.

Ashley Kemi is one of the graduates. She is going to school to be a chemical dependency counselor. “I want to take what I learned at treatment, and mental health court, and help other addicts out there. So they can see that anything is possible,” she said.

Marie Larson shared she has over 15 months of sobriety now. She has a job and her own apartment. “Mental health court gave me the first sense of stability that I’ve had in a very long time,” she said. “I’m happy to have had this opportunity. It changed my life.”

Hibbing was the last courthouse in the 6th Judicial District to implement a formal treatment court program.

“It was the aspiration of the late Judge Sally Tarnowski to have a treatment court in every courthouse in the district,” Judge Rachel Sullivan said. “The thing that stood out to me today, is I see the graduates believe in themselves, and they have a sense of self worth.”

There are four mental health courts in the state, and two of them are in the Northland.