The three stars will speak at Chase’s virtual “Show Me Your Walk” event on Saturday honoring this year’s graduates.
Stephen Curry, Kevin Hart and Serena Williams are joining forces to virtually celebrate the Class of 2020.
On Saturday, the three stars will speak at Chase’s “Show Me Your Walk” event honoring this year’s graduates, all of whom were left out of physical celebrations at their schools due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The best thing about graduation is the ability to say you did it and for people to actually applaud your accomplishment,” Hart, 40, told PEOPLE Wednesday afternoon. “You’re now in that world of an adult for real. You’re ready. You’ve done all that you were supposed to do to prepare for that next stage in life.”
The event also invites 2020 grads to share a video of themselves “showing their walk” — or how they would have walked across the graduation stage.
“You just got thrown a major curve ball, but ultimately that curve ball makes you better,” Hart added, referring to the pandemic. “These future leaders of tomorrow and today will say I was around through the pandemic, and I graduated. And after that it made me think about finances, life management and the things that are important. Your hindsight will just be different.”
Hart later joked that he’d tell the class of 2020 to “be better than I was” after saying he dropped out of the Community College of Philadelphia after just two weeks.
“Me and you are in the same court, right Steph?” Hart said, laughing. (The basketball star attended Davidson College for three years before opting out of his senior year.)
“I do remember how that experience was with my friends and people you go through that journey with, so [I’m] kind of going back into the memory bank, understanding all those memories,” Curry told reporters about his high school graduation. “This is a way for everybody to collectively step up and celebrate that class that has put so much work in. Everybody, through this virus and pandemic, we’re missing that physical interaction and that ability to be with people that matter the most to you in the same room and have laughs and shared experiences.”
Along with being a celebration, the Chase-hosted event is slated to provide resources for grads to better invest in themselves and plan for their future.
“I really want to give the message that we’re really proud to see what they’re doing,” Williams, 38, told reporters. “I definitely want to talk about goals and how it takes countless hours to reach a goal. I want to remind them that success is subjective … Success is what you make it, mostly. I hope to provide nuggets of wisdom that have kind of worked along my journey.”
To PEOPLE, Hart joked that students will be excited to see him and the tennis champion — but not the Golden State Warriors star.
“I don’t think people will be excited to see Steph, and I told him that. Y’all can quote that,” he said, laughing. “But Serena and myself, this is going to be a big thing because we’re going to have positive, strong things to say — and I just don’t know what Steph is going to say.”
“I’ve waited for this moment to give my first commencement speech so I’ve saved all that wisdom I’ve got up here, okay K. Hart?” Curry quipped back. “I got all of that right here [waiting to] give it on Saturday, so don’t rush me!”
Chase’s “Show Me Your Walk” event will be livestreamed on YouTube and Twitter at 2 p.m. ET.
