In this edition if WYSO Weekend you’ll hear about a program that’s helping parents protect their children and about Dayton’s upcoming Child Safety Week. We have Community Voices and WYSO’s occasional arts series Culture Couch. And we’ll begin introducing you to some of the speakers for this years TEDX-Dayton Conference coming up in October. See full program details below.
- A U.S. Census Bureau poverty report says the rate in Dayton stood at than 17.3% in 2014- an increase of nearly a full percentage point from 2013. The numbers mean that more than 134,000 Dayton residents were living below the poverty level last year—that’s about $20,000 for a family of three. The rate closely matches Ohio’s 16.9% food insecurity rate. Michelle Riley is with The Food Bank, a distribution group that delivers food supplies to 96 member agencies in Montgomery, Greene and Preble Counties. She said those high rates of poverty and food insecurity were on display Friday morning at a mass distribution event at the University of Dayton Arena.
- Last week, Dayton City Manager Warren Price suddenly resigned his position. Mayor Nan Whaley would only say that Price was stepping down for personal reasons, but that his resignation on Monday was unexpected. Price was hired in January for the city’s top job. He replaced former manager Tim Riordan, who resigned after leading the city for five years.
- The University of Dayton announced that Eric Spina will serve as its next president. Spina is leaves behind a 27-year career at Syracuse University—serving as vice chancellor and provost for 9 years. He will be the 19th president in UD’s history and at the announcement ceremony on campus Tuesday morning, he expressed his gratitude at being selected. Spina follows Outgoing President Dr. Daniel Curran, who is stepping down from the position in June, 2016. Curran has served as president for 14 years. Steve Cobb chair of the board of Trustees at UD characterized Curran’s tenure as “extraordinary and unprecedented.”
- A 2014 report from the Ohio attorney general’s office says more than 18,000 children were reported missing in that year—almost 17,000 of those kids were 13 to 17 years old. The stats include runaways and abductions by a stranger or a non-custodial parent. The good news in the report? 98% percent of those children were recovered safely. One program that offers parents a tool to help with that recovery is Operation KidSafe. It began 14 years ago and all week long in Dayton, parents and kids will have a chance to take part in the program. Here’s Operation KidSafe founder Mark Bott.
- If you’ve ever checked out TED Talks on you tube or TED.com, you know it’s an event that features a series of dynamic speakers on a wide variety of subjects—Ideas Worth Spreading as they say. TED Talks has generated big national audiences and cities around the country, including Dayton have spun off their own events in recent years. This year’s, TEDxDayton conference, will feature live local speakers looking to spark deep discussion and create connections among local audiences. Leading up to the conference on October 16th at the Victoria Theatre, WYSO will introduce you to a few of this year’s speakers and give you a small taste of who they are and what they plan to talk about. Today you’ll meet Matthew Purkey. He’s a City of Dayton Neighborhood Leadership Institute grad and, current member of Leadership Dayton, the Dayton Business Journal 40 under 40, and serves on numerous boards and committees including The Victory Project, and PowerNet Dayton. Here’s Matthew to tell us a little more about himself.
- A new Dayton Public Library Operations Center is about to open in the former Hauer Music Building. The passage of the Libraries for a Smarter Future levy in 2012 started an enormous construction and remodeling campaign of the entire Dayton Metro Library System. When it’s complete, the building on Patterson Blvd downtown will be part of a library campus along with the renovated main library. For Culture Couch, Community Voices Producer Marika Snider takes us on a tour of the historic building.
- Can online lists impact us in ways we don’t understand? Are there real world fallouts to being one of the “ten worst” or “ten best”? Community Voices producer Dan Gummel takes a closer look at what's called clickbait.
