‘Root causes of hunger;’ Local leaders gather to battle food insecurity at annual food summit

DAYTON — Johns Hopkins University estimates that 69% of people in Montgomery County live in an area where healthy food is hard to access, which is what leaders hope to change with the food summit that was held today.

The food summit is intended to bring different groups together, from non-profits like Miami Valley Meals to governmental organizations like Dayton-Montgomery County Public Health.

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“You have to go to the root causes of hunger,” Montgomery County Commissioner Judy Dodge said

More than 66,000 people in Montgomery County are food insecure, according to the latest Feeding America data. 22,000 of those are children.

“This cannot possibly happen in this day and age,” Dodge said.

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This is the 13th year for the Montgomery County Food Summit. Lack of access to food, especially healthy food, is a public health problem.

“There are lots of lots of causes, but the root cause that I want to kind of focus on today is hyper segregation,” Dr. Darriel Harris with Johns Hopkins University said.

Harris is with the Center for a Livable Future with Johns Hopkins University, he is a food expert and shares his expertise with Montgomery County leaders.

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“If I’m a shop and I’m looking for a place to put my grocery store I may not want to put it in the area that no one goes to. I wanted to put it in the area that everyone goes to. It tends to be the white, the higher income affluent areas,” Harris said.

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, a new Gordon Food Services store opened in Trotwood, which ended their food desert status.

“It’s nice, fresh food all over the place. That’s going to be a godsend to Trotwood. And the surrounding area,” Dodge said.

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Over the last decade of food summits, they’ve seen some real change in Montgomery County.

“We followed up, we went to Columbus, we learned from them. And we created our food plan in the Montgomery County Food Equity Coalition. So that all came out of this Food Summit,” Mark Willis, the Director of Hall Hunger Initiative said.

The real goal of these summits is that these aren’t just conversations, but that they lead to real change in Montgomery County.

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