According to CBS News, Hope Chicago is also helping students who choose not to attend one of the partner colleges. For those students, the organization is giving them a stipend of up to $1,000 per semester. The nonprofit aims to raise at least $1 billion dollars as it strives to help 30,000 Chicago students earn post-secondary credentials over the next decade.

Kadens, who founded the charity after finding success in the cannabis industry, retired in 2018 at age 40. The entrepreneur said education has been the key to his success.

“I have a big belief in paying it backward,” Kadens told CBS News. “People always talk about paying it forward. But what about the people and communities who propelled me? Those are the places that I want to go and engage.”

In addition to awarding scholarships at five Chicago high schools, Kadens has launched another similar initiative in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio. The Toledo program, launched in 2020, has awarded scholarships to about 200 families at Scott High School. The initiatives not only helps students, but also their parents and guardians.

The mother-daughter pair of Adrianne Burnett and Cayla Howard are among those benefiting from the program. Burnett said she was shocked when she heard that the scholarship would pay for her daughter to go to college, as well as herself.

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to take it. I just wanted my daughter to take the full advantage of it and go to school. But she pushed me. She’s the reason I took it,” Burnett said, according to CBS News.

Burnett, who plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in business entrepreneurship and later obtain a commercial real estate license, is grateful to have another chance to go to school.

“I thought I missed that ship,” she said. “So, no, I wasn’t going to go back.”

Violet Pina, one of the students who has earned the Hope Chicago scholarship, plans to attend the University of Illinois Chicago. Desiree Guzman and Marion Reed, who also received the scholarship, will attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“I know it’s not going to be easy,” Reed said, CBS News reports. “You’ve got to be strong-minded, even if you feel like at your lowest. Like, ‘Girl, you going to school for free. Get yourself together.’ So that’s what I’m going to be doing.”

Kadens is encouraging other entrepreneurs to follow in his footsteps.

“This is my life’s work,” he said. “This is what I’m going to spend the rest of my days doing because I believe that I was put on this earth to enable other people to get the same opportunity and access that I have.”