Spotlight on Courtney Johnson of Young&Established

By CCO Community News Writer, Michael L. Smith, Jr

MARCH 30, 2022

This week I had the opportunity to speak with Courtney Johnson, the founder of the non-profit organization Young&Established, about his work in the community and paying it forward.

Courtney Johnson is making a positive impact on the community through his amazing contributions as the CEO of the not-for-profit Young & Established organization located in Evansville.

QUESTION: Tell Us About Yourself and Your Organization

My name is Courtney Johnson and I started, basically through faith. God gave me a vision, I moved back home to Evansville about eight years ago now and started this organization while I was in school. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to give back and help people. It was a vision that was put on me, just to get out in the community and do something. We started off with park clean-ups, toy drives, food drives, mentoring, and it grew into something a lot bigger than I ever expected.

QUESTION: What is Y&E trying to accomplish in the community?

The biggest things are just inspiring people, giving back, making sure we are doing everything we can to make a difference. Our organization is big on doing everything we can to ensure people get involved in the community. That’s why we do a lot of different events. An example of that is the Harvest Fest, something we came up with by partnering with local farmers to bring a festival like this to the inner-city. We’ve always wanted to do an event where there were farm animals, music, vendors, games, all kinds of stuff, and that’s what Harvest Fest is all about.

QUESTION: Is your organization primarily focused on helping to get younger people active and engaged?

 That’s the focus, but we do so many different events and things that we get everyone of all ages involved. Older folks, even my own grandparents, come out and help during events and support what we’ve got going on. I would say it’s for everybody, but we do aim a little more toward younger people, trying to empower them to address the challenges they face every day. A community center is a place for the youth to have a safe space and exposure to learning opportunities, programs, events, mentoring, a food pantry, and access to free washers and dryers.

QUESTION: How has the pandemic impacted you and your organization?

It’s kept us busy. A lot of people needed help and we knew that. Food was the biggest issue, and food was the focus as far as making sure people had access to food. So as soon as Covid hit we dove right in and started collecting food from some partners that we have, as far as certain restaurants and whatnot. A lot of local businesses started reaching out and we just gathered as many donations as we could to make sure families had what they needed. We opened our center too, the Y&E community center, we have washers and driers people can use, we have a food pantry. Anything we could give away, we gave away, anything we could do to help the community, we tried our best to do it. 

QUESTION: What motivates you to continue your good work? 

Faith is a huge driving factor, faith for sure, but I would also include my family. My family has taught both me and my brother to give back, and as I mentioned before, my grandparents were also involved in supporting me and laying down the foundation of giving back to the community. I was raised in the church, I’ve always watched my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, everybody has always been involved in the community. I decided to take it a little further, and that’s why I started a non-profit, but they planted the seeds for sure and that’s what we want to do. We want our organization to plant these seeds as well, to inspire others like we were inspired. 

QUESTION: Why should the community care about the issues you’re addressing?

One of the things I feel is, if everybody is working together to do their part, then we can make some change. We can have a bigger impact, an effective impact. Not everybody has to start a non-profit, not everybody has to plan events and put shows together, but if we all just do something. It can be something as simple as being kind to others, being nice to somebody. If we all do our part in the community when and where we can, we can all make a difference, for sure. 

QUESTION: What can our community do to support Young&Established?

Small things go a long way, whether it’s getting involved in our organization by volunteering or something as simple as spreading knowledge about us via word-of-mouth. You could just tell somebody about Young&Established. It’s not always about the financial support, though of course to run a community center and a non-profit organization like this you do need money, but it’s not always about that. People can just come out to our events and see what we are doing. Anybody that donates to our organization, we ask that they come out and volunteer as well. That way you can see the impact, whether you’re donating food or money or whether you’re volunteering, you’ll see the impact you’re having on the community. Come down here to the center or to one of our events, I promise you’ll see it. So that’s my biggest suggestion, just get involved.

QUESTION: What is in store for the future of Y&E?

To continue to grow as much as we can. Of course, we eventually want to branch off into other areas of Evansville, open more community centers, but right now we are focusing on the southeastern part of Evansville. There are other similar organizations out there, but they are focused primarily on other parts of the city. We are in an area that really needed some help, needed some community support. We want to continue to grow as an organization to be able to help more people, that’s really the goal. I wouldn’t be able to tell you step-by-step how that is going to play out because I don’t know what I would have said if you asked me that five years ago. I mean, where we are now, it blows my mind at times still to have opened a community center. This was always a dream of mine, to open a center up where I live and grew up, right here in my own community. Things change so much though, it’s hard for me to say what exactly the future is going to look like for Y&E, but we know we are here to stay, and we want to do everything in our power to help people and keep growing.

QUESTION: Any final piece you would like our readers to know?

We love what we do here. This is a passion and dream of mine. We always want to be humble, but it is important to let people know how hard I’ve worked to get Y&E to this point. This is something I’ve built from the ground up, after working multiple jobs, planning events, doing different things to make money to get Y&E to where it is now. I also have a family, I have a little one now as well as two people I help take care of, so it’s a whole different ballgame. My purpose though has always been to give back, and to let people know you can do anything you put your mind to. I know people say that all the time, it’s probably cliché, but it is real. I knew I could make Young&Established a reality, even though sometimes I didn’t know how it was going to happen or how soon it was going to happen. But it’s all about having confidence in yourself and believing in what you can accomplish.

FOOTNOTE: Courtney Johnson is an Evansville native, a father, a mentor, and the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organization Young&Established.

If you or anyone you know needs a helping hand, or you simply want to lend a hand, please reach out to Courtney and Y&E at youngxestablished@gmail.com

Michael L. Smith, Jr. is a “Community News Writer” for The City-County Observer and is currently completing classes at Ivy Tech Community College in pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism.