Chance The Rapper is someone who’s publicly used his platform as a way to help his community. Whether it’s after school initiative to open mics, he’s always looking to give back to his community. While the rapper just wrapped up hosting duties at Saturday Night Live this past weekend, he recently paid a surprise visit to a high school in the South Austin area of Chicago where he announced some big news to the students.
Chance The Rapper went to Michele Clark High School during an assembly to announce that Jewel-Osco, a local chain of grocery stores, has donated $1 million to his newly established New Chance: Arts & Literature Fund. The donation is part of his Social Works charity in Chicago and the fund that he’s built is meant to benefit all students in the Chicago Public School system. Chance has been extremely vocal about improving the school system in Chicago. After thanking Jewel-Osco for their generation, he took some time to explain and educate the students at the school about improving the school system in Chicago.
“Your parents, your grandparents, your kids will pay money into your schooling out of their cheques and it’s supposed to affect all of our kids the same way. It doesn’t work that way, I want y’all to do the research. I’m talking to anyone who goes to Michele Clark. You guys don’t receive the same benefits that a lot of other people do and your parents pay the same money into the same government taxes,” he said. He went on to emphasize that their needs to be more accountability and leadership from government officials and those responsible to make sure the education system in Chicago gets better.
Chance initially announced that he’d donate $1 to Chicago Public Schools back through his non-profit organization, Social Works back in March. Since then, Chance has raised $3 million for Chicago Public Schools and their students. His program is to also help fund arts education in twenty Chicago schools.
While Chance’s music career continues to flourish, he’s definitely making sure that his celebrity is put to good use especially within Chicago.
Check video of the speech below:
