By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
This Saturday, March 16, a new talk show, “Conversations with KD Hall,” is set to debut in the Seattle market at 7:30 PM on KING 5 TV.
Hosted by KD Hall, founder of the KD Hall Foundation, and her co-host, Portia Polo, who is currently a junior in high school, this one-of-a-kind talk show will feature multiple diverse perspectives and stories on topics like sports, women, healthcare, and mental health during the first season. The show will feature influential community leaders engaging in unscripted discussions to spread awareness about various diverse topics.
“We are going to premiere one episode in March, April, and then starting in May, they are going to premiere [another episode] every other week,” says Hall.
Following the release of the pilot episode trailer on March 4th, Hall met with empowering women leaders in sports – including the CEO of the Sounders, the Vice President for the Kraken, and the Seattle Sports Commission President, who were all women at the top of these male-dominated sports — where all of their ideas and stories were collaborated to create a safe space within the show and encourage audiences to come together.
“The first season is really focusing on three different areas: women, sports, and mental health. What you are going to see drawn together is a lot of correlations between women in sports, women in mental health, and even our male-dominated sports that still have women sitting at the top of the leadership teams,” says Hall.
According to Hall, the show is an extension of the work that she has already been doing with the KD Hall Foundation, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary on March 1st. The foundation, established in 2014, is dedicated to empowering communities and uses media content to promote open dialogue through innovative programming. The foundation also creates platforms where each and every story and voice is valued, in hopes of making a difference, particularly among young people and our young girls.
“The span and twist is one of the segments and is going to be dedicated to Generation Z and Generation Alpha, in which Portia will be leading those conversations, coming in to talk about sports and mental health which helps show the correlation between the talk show and the [foundation],” shared Hall.
“Everybody talks about having a youth voice, but nobody really works with the youth, and I think that is another thing that is dynamic about what we are doing,” continued Hall. “When you look at our track record over the last 10 years, we have been working with youth, and we are not just adding youth to this now to try and get money or trying to get some form of notoriety or popularity. Everything is just starting to become more public about what we have already been doing over the past years.”
Before graduating in 2005, Hall started a sports talk show before graduating in 2005 at Oakland University in Michigan. After college, Hall faced adversities trying to get into her career field, and she soon realized that TV and public speaking always found their way back to her.
The new talk show will offer topics that are for everybody. Looking to approach this new talk show with an optimistic approach, Hall hopes to get people to tune in and give her the opportunity to get people to learn with and from her show.
“The reason we are doing this is for two main reasons. For one, we need some good news, especially as we are heading into a political election; all you are going to see is negative news out there,” said Hall, who says that the show is a 19-year dream come true. “I have been in the journalism field since 2000 and I have noticed that negative news is what you get. We are trying to bring some inspirational stories, and we are not shying away from serious topics either.”
In addition to the premiere of “Conversations with KD Hall” during Women’s History Month, the KD Hall Foundation will also host a resource fair at its Central District location that is dedicated to girls and their mothers to learn about the programs the foundation has to offer. Currently having 97 girls signed up, Hall shared that they are all paid for their time and they are paid to learn.
“We want the girls to come out to learn about our storytelling workshops, and classes to learn about our programming both in school and in leadership,” said Hall. “We graduated 1,000 girls out of our programs in 10 years, and also graduated 62 women out of colleges like the University of Washington and Washington State University, which I am proud about.”
