Hall highlights the importance of collective efficacy to foster care and growth in the community, as well as inspire people of all different backgrounds to advocate for change. Food insecurity is: (1) a moral issue and helping people through this is simply the right thing to do (2) a spiritual issue because God encouraged his followers to help the poor and those in need and (3) a security issue because if people do not have necessities to live, in this case food, danger and hopelessness can arise, thus creating a space for hateful ideas to grow. “We need to get the young people started.”Īmbassador Tony Hall | Courtesy of Hall demonstrates three different reasons why people of all age groups should care about this initiative and what the future implications entail if there’s a lack of support.
“Our work needs to carry on,” implores Hall. Partnering with the University of Dayton allows the Hall Hunger Initiative to provide educational experience to young, bright, aspiring students. The main goals of the Hall Hunger Initiative are to address issues related to hunger, bring awareness to the greater Dayton community, help food-focused organizations raise money and to feed their patrons and to work on microgrants for these organizations. Being food insecure encompasses a variety of different things: not knowing when your next meal will be, going to bed hungry at night and even not having money in the budget to buy essential groceries. Ambassador Hall’s comments pushed students to imagine big things, from changing the global food system to running for office themselves.”Īccording to Hall, about 90,000 people in Montgomery County suffer from food insecurity, and nearly 60,000 of these people are children. In addition to talking about hunger, he encouraged students to dedicate themselves to work for what they feel called to. Recently, Dayton Civic Scholars invited Tony Hall as a guest speaker to talk about his lifetime work, his passion for what he does and all he has accomplished.Īccording to Rachel Carr, the director of the Dayton Civic Scholars program, “Ambassador Hall focused on vocation and calling in his speech. Alarmed by these two shocking revelations, Hall decided to no longer sit by and watch as hunger devoured people’s livelihoods. The second event happened over five years ago when Hall picked up his daily newspaper that proclaimed Dayton as the “fourth hungriest city” in America. According to Hall, the first instance happened in 1984, a day where Hall witnessed 25 Ethiopian children die of hunger while he was studying in the field.
Hall was heavily inspired by two events in his lifetime, and these two events set the stage for his passion, precedence and impact on equitable food for people in Dayton and all over the United States.