Speech to UNT Hunger Banquet – How One Hour a Week can Change our City

I had the honor of speaking for the annual Hunger Banquet at UNT last night. Here’s a transcript of my talk detailing the great needs in our cities, the great solutions already offered by many of our citizens, and what college students (or anyone) can do to help…

It is my honor to be here this evening. The fact that you are here means you care about the world around you and the needs of your neighbors, whether they be next door or around the world.

Denton is a wonderful city and a great place to live.  Of cities our size, we are the 7^th fastest growing city in the nation. We are rated one of the top Livable Cities in America, were ranked the nation’s #1 small town, are consistently looked at as having one of the best independent music scenes in the nation, were recently listed as the #6 hot spot for Hi-Tech jobs, and we have a growing creative class of young professionals.  We have two beautiful and thriving universities, a downtown second to none, and a community that values culture, art and music.

Despite all this, there continue to be large numbers of people in Denton who are struggling.  Any talk of growth, of prosperity, of a healthy economy, of

• Median household income is the lowest in the county and below the state average
• 20.3% of people below the poverty level
• Highest poverty rates are in homes with single moms – 51.5% of them
• Food stamp cases and recipients have more than doubled since 2007
• 13-16% of adults have no high school diploma
• 17.2% of adults and 10.6% of kids lack health insurance
• The last official homeless count in Denton pointed to 201 individuals – we know there are more
• Need for shelter is on the rise
• Historic cuts to public education in 2011 – still not where it should be
• 40-50% of kids attending Denton ISD are on free and reduced lunch
• 1 in 3 students are considered at-risk
• Denton ISD is reporting that 426 kids in their schools are considered homeless

How can we celebrate our city’s economic prosperity when 51.5% of our single moms live below the poverty level?  When 426 kids leave school every day with no secure place to live? When a good number of our kids leave school each day unsure of where their next meal will come from?

We have a lot to work on from policies to economic development initiatives aimed at bringing more training and jobs to those who need them.

Fortunately, Denton has a significant number of people, businesses, and organizations working on these very issues.  Many people are stepping up to the plate in creative and ambitious ways to tackle some of these problems. Just to name a few…

• Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen – daily free lunches just near the square
• A doctor from the Denton Community Health Clinic provides free services to people eating there
• Every night, people needing shelter can go to the Salvation Army – the county’s only homeless shelter
• When the temperature goes below freezing or above 100 degrees, Immaculate Conception Church and Vision Ministries team up to put on an emergency shelter on the campus of Denton Bible Church where people can sleep and eat.
• The Civic Center Pool lets people in free 30-60 minutes before closing during the summer for those without money to cool off.
• Our libraries and rec centers serve as places for those without homes to shelter during the day.
• The city passed tough ordinances to regulate the predatory lending companies throughout town that make money off of other people’s misery.
• United Way then got most of the city’s banks at the table to provide financial education and bank accounts to those who need it.
• Serve Denton was created to bring together many of the city’s non profits and put them in one spot.
• Hundreds have already responded to the call by Mentor Denton to mentor our city’s most at-risk kids.
• Shiloh Fields, a project of Denton Bible Church, helps provide fresh food and garden education to the city’s hungry – they are now the nation’s largest community garden.
• Before each weekend, school employees fill kids backpacks with food to make sure they have food to eat before returning to school the following Monday.
• And I could go on and on…

So what does this mean for you? How can apply what you are learning from tonight’s event? The fact is that awareness alone is not helpful. We can all be aware of the great needs around us in this world and that awareness changes nothing. There are things you can be doing right here, right now in your own community to make a difference to those around you.

Here are some suggestions…

• UNT Center for Leadership and Service
• Our Daily Bread
• Denton Community Food Center
• Mentor Denton

Start something yourself…

• Every volunteer opportunity in this city was started with someone with an idea. They saw a problem, played around with it, and hacked a new solution.
• The problems facing us in the 21^th century can’t be solved simply by applying the same 20^th century solutions.
• The innovation culture is transforming just about every other aspect of our life and institutions, what if we applied this same sort of creative energy into our community’s social problems?

Here’s the challenge – give our community one hour a week. Imagine if every college student in Denton did just that.

• 48,000 college students between UNT and TWU
• That’s 48,000 hours of service to the community every week.
• The equivalent of 1200 full-time workers working 40 hours a week.
• Let’s go ahead and count 13 weeks per semester.
• 48,000 x 13 = 624,000 hours per semester
• That’s 1,248,000 hours per school year.
• It is estimated that an hour of service can be monetized as $20.85 per hour.
• 1,248,000 hours would mean an economic impact to our community of $26,020,800 per year.
• And that’s just our college students…

The power of one hour. Imagine that. Everyone just giving one hour a week. There’s wouldn’t be a need left in this city if we all did that.