Mom spends months working on emotional graduation gift for her son after adopting him as a teenager (exclusive)

Jill Wagner spent months contacting people in Hakins’ life before taking him in at the age of 13

• In May 2023, Jill Wagner gave her son Hakin a collage of his school photos from before her family adopted him in 2017.

• The Missouri mother posted a TikTok explaining the months of research it took to find the photos, from searching for his biological family members to calling his old schools

• Wagner spoke to PEOPLE about the inspiration behind her project and how Hakin first became part of her family at age 13

Jill Wagner didn’t meet her son Hakin until he was a teenager, but she knows his story didn’t begin then.

In honor of his high school graduation in May 2023, Wagner delved deep into Hakins’ past to find his school photos from before her family began adopting him in 2017.

In an effort to assemble a mosaic of photos of him at every age, the Missouri mother tracked down and called key figures from Hakins’ childhood, from his biological family members to contacts at his old school.

On the day of Hakin’s graduation, Wagner unveiled the finished, framed project in an emotional TikToK video that touched the hearts of 1.2 million viewers.

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“When Hakin came to us, he was 13. I didn’t know his background. I didn’t know his story,” she explained in the clip, which received over 102,900 likes. “I had to call so many different places and so many people helped me piece together his story.”

“Tonight he’s graduating from high school and I get to give him this and he doesn’t know I did this for him,” she said of her now 20-year-old son. “Isn’t that the best thing in the world?”

Looking back on her thoughtful gift, the mother of four spoke to PEOPLE about what inspired her to put together his gift in the first place.

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Wagner says she has spent her life collecting school photos of her three other children for the same reason.

“I thought it was terrible that Hakin didn’t have the same past to do this with,” she says. “I just thought it would be a beautiful gift for him to know his past… and to have these pictures, just like everyone else’s childhood in our family.”

Wagner knew little about Hakins’ early childhood, other than that he was born in Hannibal, Missouri. She began calling around town, looking for information about his family, his foster care history, and his education. She hoped someone could help her find photographs.

“I talked to a lovely teacher named Wanda who taught him in second grade or something… I reached out to some of his family members and also some people who had him in the Big Brother Big Sister program in Kansas City,” she tells PEOPLE. “It all just fell into place and I was able to find enough pictures.”

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Her gesture was made especially difficult by the fact that Hakin was placed in foster care at age 9. He had lived in several homes and attended various schools until he found a permanent home with Wagner, although she says her family wasn’t even looking for foster care when they took in the teenager.

Wagner’s eldest son, 25-year-old Brandon, met Hakin while volunteering at the residential facility where he lived in December 2017. It was two days before Christmas, and he was scheduled to move in with a family that was already caring for 11 other children. Hakin confided in Brandon, saying he didn’t want to be placed in the crowded household that awaited him.

“My son said, ‘Well, what if you could come and live with us?’ Not really knowing what that would entail,” Wagner recalls to PEOPLE, adding that Hakin happily accepted Brandon’s offer.

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“Brandon came in with tears streaming down his face. He said, ‘Mom, there’s this boy we need to help,'” Wagner continues. She says Brandon even offered to pay his own tuition if it meant Hakin could join her family.

They agreed to take him in, even though neither Wagner, her husband nor their two other children – son Brent, now 22, and daughter Aliyah, now 19 – had ever met Hakin. About three years later, Hakin’s permanent placement with the family became official.

Wagner’s TikTok followers are familiar with Hakin’s adoption story, so when she posted a first look at his graduation gift, fans flocked to the comments, asking her to record his reaction to it, too.

In the highly anticipated follow-up video, Wagner can be heard telling her son a little about what lies behind the portrait collage.

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“I’ve had to call a lot of places and talked to a lot of people,” she began in the video posted last May. “People from your past in kindergarten and first grade remember who you are… They told me they were excited that you had a great future.”

When Hakim saw the final result, he laughed and jokingly joked about his younger appearance. However, Wagner says that later, when the camera stopped rolling, he showed him his full gratitude.

“He put it in his room and we had it at his graduation,” she tells PEOPLE. “I just thought it was something he was proud of.”

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