President and CEO

President and CEO John J. Young, M.Ed., took the helm of the FreestoreFoodbank in spring of 2005. He had previously served for six years as the Welfare Reform Executive at Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services where he led the development of a strategic plan for this $1-billion agency while overseeing contracts valued at over $80 million and maintaining provider relations with more than 60 partner organizations. Throughout his career in social services, Mr. Young has been very successful in building collaborative relationships to address pressing social issues that impact the entire community.

Through the 1990s, he served as Founding Executive Director of the Hamilton County ADAS (Alcohol & Drug Addiction Services) Board, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive single site for addiction treatment and prevention services. Mr. Young is noted in the community for his success in bringing together diverse interests in pursuit of focused goals. His leadership at the FreestoreFoodbank has been instrumental in the growth of the organization’s scope of programming and related increase in annual revenue.

Mr. Young’s involvement with agencies that work to address problems related to poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration has enabled him to develop a very broad understanding of how these issues impact all of us. “It is clear that the challenges of the FreestoreFoodbank are challenges for the entire community,” he says. “No matter how big the world may seem or how expansive our worldview becomes, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are all neighbors. One thing I learned as a child in West Virginia is that neighbors help neighbors. It’s a concept that never fails.”