Transcriber: Jihan Chara Reviewer: Denise RQ
Good morning.
Well, you've almost made it through the morning.
So I don't know about how many of you in here are getting hungry,
I hate to admit that I actually am.
It's pretty bad...
Speaking of hunger,
I would like for you for a moment to imagine a place,
and in that place,
over one in four children are going to bed hungry
every single night.
Look at the pictures of these sweet little kids.
One in four.
In that exact same place,
over 58,000 people a week are receiving emergency food assistance.
58,000 people a week.
Let me put that into perspective for you:
58,000 people a week is over 3 sold out Spurs games at the AT&T center
that are seeking emergency food assistance;
not just food, but they're in an emergency state.
You don't have to imagine anymore
because I'm actually talking about here at home.
I'm talking about your neighbors in Bexar County.
A couple of years ago, I was at a church service
and probably like you,
the same statistics were thrown on the screen
and my stomach literally started hurting.
I was shocked.
I thought it is completely unacceptable
that here in my own neighborhood
there are one of these sweet children, any night of the week going to bed hungry.
That's not OK with me.
But what do I do? I don't work at a food bank.
I didn't even work at the church.
I'm just an attender.
So how can I make a difference in the lives of these kids?
So it's kind of one of those moments
where you hear about a problem, and you almost wish you hadn't heard.
Life is a lot easier when you don't know problems exist, right?
But I had heard about the problem,
and I was faced with trying to figure out what impact I could make.
So I have a funny fact for you today:
in my studies, I had learned that when times are the worst,
economic down times, there are three industries that actually thrive.
And those are alcohol, tobacco, and cosmetics.
Pretty ironic what we won't go without when we're having money problems, right?
So, I realized we've got a problem with hunger,
and I realized there are industries that actually do well during times
when people that are hungry are probably the most hungry.
I was in a girls' trip in Chicago, and I woke up in the middle of the night
with this aha! moment.
(Laughter)
I know he's pretty cute.
Could I take a bottle of wine, which is a luxury item for most,
and turn into something that could help people that are in need?
I want you to think about this
as I have this aha! moment.
Here is my disclaimer:
I had determined I thought a bottle of wine was a good idea.
I don't know much about wine at this point.
And I actually still don't really know that much about mine
except for how to drink it pretty well.
(Laughter)
I want you to envision again
I'm at this crossroads and I have these two pictures of hallways
because I want you to truly capture what I was going through.
If you look at the light hallway,
imagine that it is me before I knew the hunger rate.
That's really where I wanted to go
I wanted to put the earmuffs on and pretend I had never heard about it.
But then I had determined
"Wow, maybe I can do something with the bottle of wine.
But I don't know anything about wine."
And I started very quickly realizing
"I'll have to hire an attorney.
I'll have to get a trade mark.
How in the world do you design it? A wine label?
And, oh yeah, where in the world is this wine going to come from?"
But I kept thinking about those kids,
and how I was truly truly thinking it's unacceptable,
and so I heard my name
at the end of that dark hallway of fear and uncertainty,
and I decided to just take a step.
I took one step and I said,
"OK, I'm going to reach out to my network of friends,
make some phone calls, talk about hunger a lot."
Then I take another step.
I put my hand on the wall because it is so dark,
and I really am so scared that I'm not going to be able to accomplish my goal.
But I kept walking and kept walking.
Ironically, in my kitchen, I have a chalkboard
that I put little signs on to stimulate conversation,
and during the walk through this dark hall I had this up:
"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?"
There was a time when I was in that dark hallway of fear and uncertainty
I literally had to sit down and look back
to make sure the light was still on In that light hallway
because I didn't know if I was capable of doing it.
But every day I left my house, I saw this phrase.
If I think it's 100% certain that I will have success,
would I stop now?
Well, I'm very excited to tell you I didn't.
I kept taking those baby steps through that fear,
and I ended up creating a wine label that for every bottle sold,
it impacts that local community and provides meals
to those kids and people that are hungry
within that place that it's purchased.
So at the end of the hallway of fear, there was a big light
that not only shone on me personally, but here to date over 63,000.
Actually I just got the numbers, and it's over 70,000 people
who've received food because of this label.
But I don't want to tell you about it because of the label.
What I'm trying to explain to you
is although I didn't know much about it, I continued to take steps through it.
And because of that, an impact was made.
And I want to challenge you,
everybody has things that we're compassionate about, right?
And that we get fired up.
What would get you through that dark hallway
when you hear something that you think is truly unacceptable?
And as you think about that, I challenge you to write this phrase down
and think about your own lives,
and imagine that there are no limits to what you even as one person can do
and ask yourself every day
what would you attempt to do if you knew that you could not fail?
And I challenge you to go and do it.
And here's to you and your success.
Cheers. Thank you guys so much.
(Applause)