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How compassion, not just free tuition, helped one Ohio student achieve his college dreams
Toledo, Ohio — A little over four years ago, seniors at Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio, walked into their school gym for an assembly, and then received the surprise of a lifetime.
“If you’re sitting here in this room today, tuition, room and board, books and fees will be paid for you, and you will go to college for free,” philanthropist and businessman Pete Kadens told them back in February 2020.
Kadens had started a nonprofit, called HOPE Toledo, for students like Chris Rowland.
Rowland said he could have never afforded college, especially after his mother, Abena, lost her job, and his father died in a house fire.
“It’s a lot that I’ve been through,” Rowland told CBS News this week.
Then, shortly after starting college, Rowland’s brother, Jo’Von, was murdered.
“My grades took a dwindle,” Rowland said. “They went completely downhill.”
Rowland quit school, struggled to hold a job and got in with the wrong crowd.
Although he gave up on Hope Toledo, not all hope was lost.
From that first day in the gym, to now, Kadens remained in Rowland’s life. Through all the missteps and blown opportunities, Kadens has been there, mentoring, lecturing, feeding and fathering.
Because of Kaden’s ever-presence, today Rowland is back on track. He just finished his freshman year at Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio.
“You know what I realized along this journey…if all we do is give them money, they’re not going to make it,” Kadens said. “You have to look at all the different things that create a successful student and a successful person.”
Most importantly, Kadens was committed for the long haul.
“Pete has always constantly been there,” Rowland said. “When I gave him plenty of reasons to stop believing in me, he stayed. And he’s still sticking it out with me. He’s something special. It’s hard to put in words.”
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CBS News
McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
