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Dreams come true for thousands of contestants on “America’s Got Talent” every year and one woman from Central Massachusetts is one step closer to fulfilling hers after she blew the judges away with an unforgettable performance.

“I have a lot of dreams,” Lavender Darcangelo said during her audition that premiered on Tuesday, July 11.

“I want to build a school where the classes are based off of what kids are naturally curious at,” Darcangelo continued. “So, a school I would have thrived in.”

Lavender, who is blind and is autistic, has been singing since she was 3 years old, the Fitchburg native told the judges. But Darcangelo did not start talking until she was 4, she added.

Music also helped the 27-year-old find her forever family after she joined an afterschool program in 2010, according to her profile on the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism’s website.

While attending this program, Lavender met Wil Darcangelo who, along with his husband, Jamie, would become Lavender’s adoptive fathers in 2017.

“She asked me to adopt her, but I said, ‘Well I’m a member of the faculty and, you know, that’s just not how it works,’” Wil explained during the audition.

“But, you know, several years go by and she’s having struggles and before you know it she moved in with me and my husband Jamie the day we came home from our honeymoon and so a year after that she became our legal daughter,” Wil continued.

While Darcangelo’s story was enough to move the judges, her rendition of Irene Cara’s 1980′s song “Out Here On My Own” earned her the coveted golden buzzer from judge Heidi Klum.

“That was sensational,” judge Simon Cowell said. “We make the show because we get to meet people like you occasionally and I’m so happy that you’ve come on our show to share your talent with us because this is an audition I’ll never forget.”

With the golden buzzer, Lavender advances directly to the live round.

Darcangelo is also working on her debut album, expected to be called “Mosaic.” A GoFundMe campaign has been created to help the family make this possible. People interested in donating can click here.

AGT airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock TV.

A school in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, that has intensive programs for students with disabilities is asking for help.

The Keystone Educational Collaborative won a state-of-the-art gait trainer to help kids who have trouble moving around, but time is running out before they have to return it.

Since coming here, she's a whole new kid," mom Kayla Morgann said about five-year-old Mia McGann. "This poor little girl has gone through more surgeries than I have in my entire life. Yeah, she's had open hip reduction three times. She's had club feet repaired several times, tubes three times."

That's what brought Mia to the Keystone Educational Collaborative, where she was introduced to the Trexo gait trainer.

"It’s life-changing," Morgann said. "It's teaching her how to walk."

Lead physical therapist Amanda Costella said that gait trainers are basically fancy walkers that take multiple staff members to operate, but the Trexo takes it to a different level.

"It's a robot, it's an exoskeleton," Costella said. "It attaches to the user and it moves their legs through the gate cycle for them to lay down that pathway so that they can learn how to walk."

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It's already made a difference for two-year-old Myles LeBlanc, who suffers from a rare neurodevelopmental disorder.

"He went from doing like 100 steps," Kaitlin LeBlanc said. "He did a thousand steps one day."

The Trexo has a lot of special features, like uploading progress right into an electronic tablet.

“We'll start to see 10% initiation, 20% initiation, 30% initiation. So it tells us how much they're contributing to the process," Costello said.

It's been an amazing gift for students and surprise for the school when they won the gait trainer for one year at no cost in a Trexo contest giveaway.

The problem now is that the lease is coming up and in order to keep it, they need $75,000. The school doesn't have that funding, and is asking for donations.

"I desperately want to keep it," Costello said.

"Mia needs this," McGann said. "And unfortunately, health insurance doesn't cover it, so we can't get one at home."

If you want to donate to help, you can visit the school's website here.

The only emergency homeless shelter in Fitchburg, which previously came under scrutiny over complaints of alleged mistreatment of guests, will shut down at the end of March.

Judith Nest Pasierb, executive director of Our Father's House, which runs the shelter, informed Fitchburg Mayor Stephen DiNatale via email this week that the state will not renew the shelter's contract. She issued a similar statement to WBUR.

"Please understand, Our Father's House is closing the Shelter due to not being chosen with a new contract from the MA Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) effective April 1, 2023," the statement said. "The closing deeply affects Our Father's House and the compassion that we have for sheltering homeless men and women, as well as providing case management, meals, clothing and personal care items."

DHCD funds adult emergency homeless shelters, but the state agency does not operate them. It does operate the state's family shelter system.

In 2021, Kevin MacLean stepped down as director of homeless initiatives for Our Father's House and overseer of the shelter's daily operations, amid longstanding allegations he abused guests. Police and independent investigations cleared him.

Tara Rivera, a community advocate who works with people experiencing substance use issues and homelessness in the Fitchburg area, said complaints of assaults, harassment and drug use by some workers at the shelter have continued over the last two years. She said she's largely relieved it's closing.

"The first thought that came to mind was, 'thank God,' because that means the abuse and neglect of our clients are going to end. ... You think about the word shelter. It's supposed to be a safe place. It's not a safe place. It's a toxic environment," Rivera said. "However, then there's a concern about all of those shelter beds and now where are these people going to go?"

Nest Pasierb, of Our Father's House, wouldn't answer questions about the shelter or its planned closure.

Mayor DiNatale said DHCD is working to increase capacity at an emergency shelter program it's been funding at a former Days Inn in neighboring Leominster since 2021. That program is run by a different nonprofit.

A DHCD spokesperson said the closure of Our Father's House will not result in a loss of shelter capacity in the region. The agency would not otherwise comment on the impending closure, but noted that last year was the first time it required shelter programs statewide to submit competitive bids for contracts.

The mayor said it's his understanding that the state has concerns about the Our Father's House shelter, but he hasn't spoken directly with DHCD officials about the decision not to renew the contract.

"All I do know is the operation wasn't running up to the standards that the state requires — in their mind," DiNatale said.

The shelter has played an important role in Fitchburg over the years, according to the mayor.

"This was a place where people could get out of a situation that they probably didn't, you know, seek," DiNatale said. "So this was always the go-to facility. I mean, they were the only go-to facility in the city."

Police were called to the shelter this week after an altercation between a staff member and an 18-year-old guest. Police filed a report but declined to charge anyone because, the report said, neither party wanted to press charges at the time.

Our Father's House said it will continue to operate its other programs, including transitional housing, a sober house and a food pantry.

FITCHBURG, Mass. —

Linda Anderson's first-ever principal job was at a Catholic high school in Massachusetts that was facing a crippling deficit.

In its heyday, enrollment at St. Bernard's in Fitchburg was 800 students. But by the time Anderson became principal, the student population was at 100 and dropping.

"I would be taking over in the spring of 2019 and it was announced later that spring that we would be closing. So, I hadn't started yet," Anderson said.

"It was scary. I remember I was deciding between here and the public high school in my town, and I didn't know whether or not to take the risk," said St. Bernard's senior Lily Kenney.

The Diocese of Worcester announced that if enrollment continued to decline, that St. Bernard's would close at the end of the 2019-20 academic year. Anderson said the school would also need to raise about $1 million to stay open.

St. Bernard's was able to win a bid to privatize and operate independently as of 2020, as well as raise nearly $1 million, but it wasn't enough.

While the school was fighting for its life, the St. Bernard's football team was able to win its second straight state championship in the fall of 2019.

"I remember sitting in Gillette Stadium saying: 'Wow! I can't believe this school of 100 kids just did something this big," Kenney said.

2019 Massachusetts high school Super Bowl champions crowned at Gillette Stadium

"The kids could feel it and they just fought hard, and they helped to rally for their school, too," Anderson said. "Then that inspired us and then we kept going. Then they saw that we were going and then they kept going. It really was like a baton passing.

"Each time we got more adrenaline, the money just kept coming in," the principal added.

By August 2021, St. Bernard's had surpassed its fundraising goal of $2.5 million and is still in operation. The school's comeback story is the subject of a documentary film: "All In: Miracle at St. Bernard's."

The student body, once predominantly male, is now a near 50/50 split of nearly 200 boys and girls with 30% of the student population made up of people of color.

"You've got to break the glass ceiling by just bumping right into it. Just take it down," Anderson said.

Anderson said St. Bernard's is still trying to raise a few more million dollars to help fund a new science lab, along with renovations for the 103-year-old school building.