With a baby on the way and a tour kicking off next month, Jay-Z has still found time to give back, hosting a charity carnival event, Making the Ordinary Extraordinary, at New York City's Hudson River Park Pier Thursday night (Sept. 29).

Replete with rides, funnel cakes, and prizes, all proceeds from the event went towards Jay's Sean Carter Scholarship Foundation, which provides financial assistance for underprivileged youth pursuing higher education.

"Just providing opportunity and seeing what people do with that opportunity," Jay told MTV. "If you want to go further and you want to further your education, just giving someone that extra little push [so] that maybe you'll turn out to be someone special."

Also in attendance was Jay's mother, Gloria Carter, with whom he started the foundation, back in 2002. "My mom has been running this for a number of years," he said. "My mom gets on the bus and takes the kids and takes them to their orientations and she's been riding around the college. It's a real grassroots thing that she's been doing on her own, and I'm just really trying to help her expand it so we can help more people. It started out as a Brooklyn thing, and then it started as a New York thing, and now hopefully we can take it to a worldwide thing."

Since its inception, the Sean Carter Scholarship Foundation has handed out over $1.1 million, which has helped over 750 students pay for schooling.

Watch Jay-Z's 'Empire State of Mind'

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