Speech pulls in big bucks for speaker’s hard-up hometown

If you ever doubt the material good that a speech can do when a speaker meets a moment and a need:

At this writing, more than $400,000 has been donated to poor families in Athens, Ohio.

Why?

Because of these simple sentences in the emotional Heisman Trophy Award acceptance speech by LSU quarterback Joe Burrow last weekend: “Coming from southeast Ohio, it’s a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There’s so many people there that don’t have a lot. And I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too.”