For many people, $1 million would mean a lot of green. To Jakeem Heath, he felt like a million bucks in the Volusia County Sheriff's Office green uniform he wore Monday night at his graduation.

Heath, 22, has long dreamed of being a police officer — since he was 2, said his mother Dominique Heath.

"I feel like, and this is going to be funny, but I feel like I just bought a million lottery tickets and I lost on every single one of them till the last one — when I struck a million dollars, that's how it feels," Heath said of finally becoming a sheriff's deputy.

Heath's journey to becoming a sheriff's deputy was not easy. The family is from the Spring Hill area near DeLand, where law enforcement officers are not looked upon favorably. Heath's mother said her son was threatened in attempts to scare him from his dream.

In December, when The News-Journal first interviewed Heath, he shared how he got called all kinds of names, got evil looks from his classmates and even got shot at to discourage him from wearing the uniform of a law enforcement officer.

"The hard thing was watching the threats, you know, people threatening him because of his choice in career," Dominique Heath said at her son's graduation from the Daytona State College police academy on Monday night. "It was just amazing for him to find out he wanted to be in law enforcement and for him to actually do it. I'm very, very proud of him."

Beside being pressured by some in his neighborhood to abandon his dream, Heath had other challenges. He dropped out of high school to help his mother, but always approached deputies in the street to chat. Through those conversations, he met sheriff's Sgt. Justin Sawicki and Deputy Morris Froscher. They joined efforts and tutored Heath to help him get his general education diploma and helped him get into the police academy.

"Jakeem is from the Spring Hill area of DeLand, and the community around him, they don't like law enforcement and Jakeem, even with that, still wanted to be a deputy," said Froscher, a former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant.

Sheriff's officials have said that experiences like Heath's is what makes it difficult for the Volusia sheriff's office to recruit minorities into the department. The Sheriff's Office has 442 full-time sworn deputies. Twenty-one of those are black, said sheriff's spokesman Andrew Gant.

The Sheriff's Office has constantly worked to increase the presence of black deputies in a department that patrols a county with a population of 56,336 African Americans, according to 2014 U.S. Census figures.

Heath said he eventually wants to be a school resource deputy because he wants to use his experience to teach students about law enforcement officers and work to foster a relationship of respect between youth and law enforcement officers, he said.

"The Sheriff's Office has gained so much from this," Froscher said. "Not only do we have another good young deputy ready to join the ranks but it helps us with the relationship with the community."

Sheriff's Capt. Dave Brannon said Heath "would be a huge help making connections with the community wherever he is assigned."

"The Sheriff's Office is very committed to working more with youth and recruiting more minorities in the Sheriff's Office as well," Brannon said.

In all of this, Heath is the real winner, because despite of all the obstacles he faced, he put his heart and soul in going after his dream, Sawicki said.

"With Jakeem, he put the initiative to this is what I want, this is my goal, this my dream and he is running away with that," Sawicki said.