It's a big goal, but one that the Westland Foundation believes it can achieve. They want to send every inner-Winnipeg kid to university for free.

The Westland Foundation, started in 2009 by former City Councillor John Prystanski, is committed to sending inner-Winnipeg students to a university by providing scholarships to students who couldn't afford school otherwise.

"Eventually over time, it morphed into the belief and understanding and our goal that we want to be able to send every student in inner-Winnipeg to university or college and pay for their complete post-secondary education," said Prystanski.

That lofty goal got a little closer at the end of last month when the Westland Foundation officially announced that it had raised over $2-million towards its education fund.

"We have a whole group of individuals that have come forward and said to us that without the Westland Scholarship, they don't know if they would have went, or they don't know if they would have had the belief that they could have gone," Prystanski said.

One of those students is Duyen Chau, who is now serving the Westland Foundation as a scholar who is trying to set up an alumni program. Chau received a scholarship from the Westland Foundation in 2015 and says it helped a lot when she got the scholarship.

"That scholarship helped me alleviate the burden of having two jobs and taking a full course load."

Chau's parents were refugees from Vietnam and came to Canada in the hopes that their kids would have a chance at a better education. Chau wants to show those in inner-Winnipeg that if she is able to do it, then anyone can.

"I've seen the benefits education makes," Prystanski noted. "I look at a lot of kids in inner-Winnipeg and think that they need to know the value of education."

To send every inner-Winnipeg student to post-secondary school, Prystanski says it will take $55-million. They just started the journey but he's convinced that this is possible.

"We're going to continue providing scholarships to students," Prystanski said proudly. "We hope to change the face of education in Manitoba."