Before leaving the tent she and her Chihuahua call home Thursday morning, Stacy Selmants grabbed a pair of black shoes. She was on her way to the graduation ceremony for the eight-week job readiness program for homeless women she had completed at Women's Empowerment on North C Street.

"I live in a tent. In tents, we don't have closets. I was in a hurry," she said.

The shoes weren't a matching pair. Worse, they were both left shoes.

Luckily, Selmants was able to borrow a pair of heels from the clothes closet at Women's Empowerment. The organization's "holistic approach" helps homeless women with a range of problems, from domestic violence to a lack of professional attire.

Demand for the Women's Empowerment program has grown dramatically because of the economy. When volunteer coordinator Michelle DeSart Adcock began working for the organization two years ago, only a few women had to be turned away from the program. Now, as many are turned away as are accepted.

"Some of the women have owned businesses, a lot of them have college degrees. Ten years ago, they may have been able to easily get back on their feet," Adcock said.

"Since the economy sucks right now, it's hard to get a job," said Domanic Kinney, 21, who has been hired by the Ross store on Howe Avenue since beginning the program. "Hopefully it changes. I watch the news, so I see that it's not going to change that much."

The 43rd session of the program, which ended with Thursday's ceremony, included classes on anger management, parenting, writing résumés and cover letters, and using Microsoft Office. Each student was paired with a volunteer mentor. The organization baby-sat students' children during classes in a small room in its office.

Yet renewed self-confidence seemed to be what the graduates valued most from their time with the program.

Sherri Weldon raised a large family, volunteered as a parent-teacher group president and a girls' camp leader, and ran a sewing school before she was divorced and ended up in an alcohol treatment center without a home.

"I did raise a family of 11 children, had a home on an acre, ran a successful business," she said. The program has reminded her "that I would be an asset to any business and am very employable. That's something I'd kind of forgotten."

In freshly pressed white slacks, jewelry, and a hot pink blazer, Weldon looked like nothing other than a competent businesswoman. All of her clothes were donated.

Selmants, wearing a gray suit with her matching shoes, made the same point. "I have had, most of the time until now, enormous self-confidence," she said. Selmants, 54, has worked in marketing, sales and lobbying, but left the workforce for five years to care for her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. Now she is optimistic about several job interviews she has scheduled in the next few weeks.

Selmants, Weldon, Kinney, and 25 others donned glittering lavender scarves for the Thursday ceremony. They brought the number of Women's Empowerment alumnae to 798 since the program began in 2001.

The ceremony was held in an empty warehouse decorated with crepe paper and clusters of violet and silver balloons. About 200 of the graduates' friends and family members attended.

Downtown businessman Moe Mohanna owns the warehouse and the building next door in which Women's Empowerment is housed. He also volunteers as a mentor in the program and described picking weeds out of his students' hair who had slept beside the American River before coming to class.

Mohanna has confidence in the program's participants. "If you get up, you wash your face in that cold river water, and you walk all the way here, you can do it," he said. He hopes to turn the warehouse into a homeless shelter this winter.

Kinney introduced the graduates at the ceremony. "I believe we are ready to take on all life has to offer," she told the audience.

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