March 29, 2025“Community is the recipe for change”: Tara Campbell’s Homegrown Leadership Shines in Dayton
Gem City Market is committed to honoring trailblazers from our community. During Women’s History Month, we celebrate the women whose voices shape our neighborhoods and whose work uplifts generations. Tara Campbell is one of those women. A proud native of Dayton, Ohio, Campbell has spent more than 30 years championing the rights of her neighbors—through housing, human rights advocacy, and grassroots organizing. But for her, the work is never about one person. It’s about collective impact.
“I am a native Daytonian, a product of Dayton Public Schools, a graduate from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, and Central State University,” she shares. “I’ve always known I’d be involved in public service somehow. I just didn’t know where the path would take me.”
That path led Tara to housing—and she never looked back. She started as a maintenance clerk in public housing, handling service requests and listening closely to the needs of tenants. Over the years, she advanced to property management roles in the private sectors, managing apartment complexes and housing portfolios across the Dayton region.
“I’ve probably worked with five or more affordable housing companies in the real estate industry around our community,” she explains. “That’s when I started to really see the difference in quality, and how deeply housing affects a person’s well-being.”
Determined to do more, Tara returned to Sinclair Community College to earn her real estate license—adding Realtor to her list of credentials. She didn’t just want to manage housing; she wanted to help people become homeowners, create generational wealth, and take ownership of their futures. In addition, received her Entrepreneur degree and started her own business, 5 Starz Empire.
Eventually, her expertise led her to engage with state-level housing in her professional capacity. Meanwhile, in her community work, Tara serves as Executive President of Dayton United for Human Rights Coalition—a volunteer-driven grassroots nonprofit dedicated to education, advocacy, and building community through a human rights lens. At DUHR, Tara and her team are focused on local efforts with ,monthly programming for the Human Rights Youth Ambassador Cohort at the West Library and Human Rights Education Series around Real Life human rights issues in our lives and community at the Northwest Library as well as supporting DUHR Housing Committee that is working to develop an Unhoused Bill of Rights.
“If you don’t have housing, the majority of your human rights are not met,” she says. “When we talk about people who are unhoused, we’re also talking about access to clean water, healthcare, food, education, safety. These are basic human rights. And when housing isn’t secure, it’s hard for any of those rights to be realized.”
In that spirit, DUHR works collaboratively with many local groups to advocate for the protection of human rights locally and raise public awareness. While DUHR is not a policy-changing body, the organization works to educate residents about their human rights and is leading the local Human Rights movement for the protection of rights and dignity for all people in the Dayton region.
“We are also working to educate people about their rights at our monthly Human RIghts Education Series at the Northwest Library the 2nd Tuesday monthly—because many don’t even know what they’re entitled to,” Tara says. “That’s why shared language matters. These are not privileges. These are rights you’re born with.”
Tara’s coalition also helped mobilize community support around the recent tax levy, where $1.1 million was committed to housing in Dayton. DUHR played a collaborative role in that effort, working alongside the Dayton Tenants Union and other advocates to ensure the community’s voice was heard.
“It wasn’t just me. It was us,” she emphasizes. “One voice is not enough—we have to have a shared future.”
When she talks about Dayton’s future, Tara speaks with hope—and a call to action. She urges people to show up for each other, especially by supporting local institutions that reflect community values and the importance of transparency in government.
“We need to support our local businesses. That means going to Gem City Market. Even if it’s just once a month to buy a few things—small things matter.”
To her, Gem City Market isn’t just a grocery store. It’s part of the larger ecosystem of justice and health—proof that the people of Dayton can build their own solutions and take care of one another. Tara also sees Women’s History Month as a time for both reflection and resolve.
“Women have been at the forefront of most human rights movements,” she says. “But systemic barriers like workplace discrimination, unequal healthcare access, and gender-based violence still hinder progress. We have to keep going.”
She honors the trailblazers—like Idotha “Bootsie” Neal who was a significant political and community leader in Dayton, Ohio. She made history as the first Black woman elected to the Dayton City Commission in 1991, serving until 2004—while carving her own path forward.
“If I could leave one thing with everyone,” Tara says, “it’s that community is the recipe for change.”