Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
Minnie Moore-Johnson is a resident of Southwest Philadelphia, but is well known throughout the City. Her work has been recognized nationally, and internationally, even as far away as Japan and China. Over the course of her career (spanning 40 plus years), Mrs. Moore-Johnson, who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Concerned Parents, Inc., has received hundreds of awards including but not limited to: Operation Push’s Angel of Mercy Award, The Sojourner Truth Woman Of The Year Award, The Gladys Warrington Community Service Award, (which was given by the Kappa Omega Zeta Sorority Chapter), The NAACP Community Service Award, The Woman of the Year 2004, The Empire Who’s Who, and many others.
Mrs. Moore-Johnson was also honored by the Philadelphia 76ers Basketball organization in a half-time special tribute for her outstanding work with the youth and elderly of Philadelphia. Also worth mentioning, Mrs. Moore-Johnson received the Philadelphia Tribune’s Achiever’s Awardfor outstanding work behind the scenes to make life better for America’s cities”.
In addition to the aforementioned awards, she has had many articles written on her work by almost every newspaper in the City of Philadelphia as well as nationally. A Philadelphia Inquirer article was quoted as saying “since 1968 Minnie has fed old, ill, and forsaken alike”. Bob Perkins of WDAS-FM radio station did an on-air editorial in which he said, “I’m convinced that the world would be in a much healthier state if there were more Minnie’s running show and tell programs”. The Women’s Day Magazine wrote an article that led to a one-hour television special about her community service work which was produced by Essence Television Show.
Most noted for her Thanksgiving dinners for seniors, which began in 1968 when 15 seniors were served, she garnered the attention of the Smithsonian Institute in 1988 when in that year she served 25,000 meals to seniors at the Philadelphia Civic Center. This feat was most noteworthy because it was accomplished without City, State or Federal funds. Totally promoted as a “neighbor-helping-neighbor” event, Ms. Moore-Johnson has been credited with the largest “one day feeding in the history of the City”. The National Enquirer wrote, after following her for several weeks and admiring the work she did with the youth in the community, that she was a “Real Life Fairy Godmother”. Needless to say, Essence Magazine, the Daily News, the New Observer and many other accredited news papers did articles over the years citing how Minnie opened her home and her heart to all of God’s children, young and old.
Her home has been graced by dignitaries and drug addicts alike, (or as Minnie puts it, “from the Pipers to the Presidents”) with everyone benefiting equally from her wisdom and generosity. Throughout her office at Concerned Parents Inc., there are pictures with Presidents; Reagan, Bush Sr., Carter and Clinton: Mayors; Marion Berry of Washington, D.C., Wilson Goode, John Street; as well as Governors Thornburg, Casey, and Rendell. There are also pictures of celebrities like Dick Gregory, Esther Rolle, Jerry Butler and jazz musician, Najee, just to name a very few. She cites Leon Sullivan as a major inspiration to all she has accomplished and acknowledges the contributions and support of local politicians such as Senator Anthony Hardy Williams, Congressman Chaka Fatah, City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, City Council President Anna Verna, State Representative Ron Waters, and Clerk of Quarter Sessions/51st Ward-Ward Leader Vivian Miller, just to name a few.
For ten years the Pennsylvania Prison Society used the services of her organization to provide community service opportunities to the Prison Society’s clients. This prompted Minnie to return to school (Temple University) where she enrolled to better understand the Criminal Justice System in order to service the increasing number of ex-offenders. Once at Temple, she discovered that Lori Pompa, (a Board member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society who in the past had also used the services of Concerned Parents Inc., to assist with clients she encountered) , was now one of her professors. It was then that Lori asked Minnie to consider using her experience and fill the position of part-time Life Skills Educator at the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Going above and beyond as is typical, Minnie’s desire to do more than train ex-offenders for employment, turned into a full-time position as Job Developer. Her ability to successfully obtain employment for ex-offenders, garnering an average wage of $8.56 per hour with full benefits, brought her to the position of being the first Program Manger for the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s Re-Entry Services Project. This brought her to be the most sought after “Job Developer” in the State of Pennsylvania. It also led to her creating and teaching the only certified Job Development course at Temple University, which trains a variety of ex-offender programs, social workers and job developers, parole/probation officers, Drug and Alcohol programs, etc. The course provided a successful process in assisting ex-offenders in becoming employed. This process was developed as a pilot program for the JOBS Project, which is presently used in the Philadelphia Prison System. Mrs. Johnson is a now a Youth Aid Panelist for the District Attorney’s office and Program Manager for Philadelphia Safe and Sound’s Youth Violence Reduction Program providing services to troubled youth ages 15-24.
She believes her journey has come full circle, in that it has afforded her the experience of expanding her knowledge base to include a better understanding of the criminal justice system, the expectations of ex-offender clients, and the skills she needed to return to her first love, that of servicing the people of her S.W. Philadelphia community – as Executive Director/CEO of Concerned Parents, Inc.
