Meet The Team

Founder & Executive Director
Kathy Johnson
Kathy was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. She married young and then raised her two sons as a single mother. Lacking a college degree she worked waiting tables and cleaning houses while her children were growing up. In 1994 she began a career in the airline industry. She has been a flight attendant for over 29 years, and still loves it. In 2007, at 50 years old, she graduated from Georgia State University with Bachelor’s Degrees in African American Studies and Sociology. She credits her life experiences as the driving force for her determination to serve others by helping them gain access to the resources they need to follow their passion, get an education, or learn a trade and become productive members of their communities. In 2001 she visited Uganda for the first time and fell in love with the country and her people. She has dedicated the past 24 years to Ugandans, personally funding the high school and university educations of at least 20 students.. She is passionate about her children and grandchildren, the environment, Uganda, and literally, making the world a more just and equitable place.

President
Joseph Irvine
Joseph is a lifelong entrepreneur with a passion for solving complex problems through simple, scalable solutions. He launched his first business at age 12 and has spent his career in technology—developing software still used by schools across the U.S. and now leading global infrastructure projects as a Senior Technical Program Manager for Amazon Prime Video. Joseph’s work has taken him around the world, managing teams across Costa Rica, Spain, and India, and making regular trips to collaborate on the ground. His heart for humanitarian efforts has led him to serve on the board of a charter school in Arizona and to support sustainable job creation in East Africa. He’s spent time in Ethiopia and neighboring Malawi, assisting with initiatives including local fisheries and economic development programs.

Secretary
Nancy McEntire
Nancy was born in Japan and moved to California when she was a child. Her mother was a Buddhist and taught her to always help others. She is currently an executive assistant for an executive search firm for the last 18 years and has one daughter. This past year Nancy went to Uganda with her cousin, Kathy, and was amazed at the beauty of the country and the kindness of the people.

Board of Directors
Floyd Alvin Galloway
Floyd Alvin Galloway, known on air as Alvin Galloway, is host and producer of the weekly radio program THE ALVIN GALLOWAY SHOW. A native of Rockford Illinois, he is a freelance writer, photographer, entrepreneur, parent and community servant focusing on social improvement, educational issues, youth
development and spiritual enhancement. His mission is to make his community and the people of the community better. Mr. Galloway’s motto is “It is a great day to make somebody’s day great.” Over the years Galloway has served or currently is serving on various community boards, including the Disability Rights Arizona, Chandler Unified School District Budget Committee, and the South Chandler Self-Help Foundation, NAACP Resolutions Committee. Likewise, he has assisted the Arizona Lost Boys Center and spearheaded the reactivation of the East Valley Branch of the NAACP, which he served as president for nearly 10 years. Mr. Galloway, an active member of his church, the Historic Tanner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Phoenix has served on numerous auxiliaries including the Usher and Trustee Boards, Jubilee Choir and Men of Tanner Ministry. He directed the Tanner’s Men’s Christmas Prayer Breakfast which is attended by 100 men from
across the Valley and the Resurrection Breakfast for several years. A strong believer and supporter of Boy Scouts of America, Mr. Galloway has served in
many leadership positions of his church’s Scouting program from chairman to Den leader. As a journalist he regularly contributed to the Arizona Informant Newspaper and WVON’s Perri Small talk radio program in Chicago, Desert Soul Media’s Soul Star Live, Minority Engineer and Women Engineer Magazines and American Community Media.

Board of Directors
Dr. Barbara Williams Emerson
Dr. Barbara Williams Emerson is a veteran activist, academic leader, and consultant. Having started as a voter registration organizer at age fifteen, her involvement with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) took her to local civil rights movements in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Washington D. C., Illinois, and New York. She protested in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, directed by her father Hosea Williams, and helped to set up Resurrection City for the the l968 Poor People's Campaign on Capital Hill. Emerson worked with the Congress on Racial Equality in Harlem, NY, organized the anniversary march of the 1987 Forsyth County March against Fear and Intimidation, managed her father’s bid for Congress, and has participated in “Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless” since her family started the food and human services program 50 years ago.
Dr. Emerson’s national and international presentations on the Civil Rights Movement, her father’s contributions, and her own activities have included King Day celebrations in Corvallis, Ore., Newburgh, NY, Phoenix, AZ and at the US Department of Commerce, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and the University of Peking in China. She appeared in “Living Selma,” and “1965” produced by Ambassador Andrew Young and “Hosea Williams: The Untold Story,” a WSBTV special that she helped produce. She has shared the stage with the daughters of Bishop Desmond Tutu and Malcolm X as the women reflected on how growing up with men who changed the world informed their own activism and careers as change makers. She was a principal organizer of “VoteTree,” an innovative arts-based Get-Out-the-Vote campaign created for the Georgia Senate Run-off that shifted the balance to Democratic during the Trump administration. Dr. Emerson holds a B.A. from New York University and master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University. Her career included faculty, administrative, dean, and Vice President positions at City University of New York, the New School for Social Research, Audrey Cohen College, and the International College of the Cayman Islands. She was the founding Vice President of “Be the Change PEOPLE” which provides educational support for students in Uganda, East Africa, and is on the Board of SCOPE50 that Dr. King commissioned in 1965 to carry out voter registration and political education. President of Emerson Consultants, Ltd., with offices in New York and Atlanta, Dr. Emerson is a citizen of the world having visited 53 countries including Philippines, India, and Brazil where she engaged in school construction, peace marches, and community service respectively.

Board of Directors
Tim Challis
Tim is a retired K-8 teacher with 34 years of experience in the field of education. Of those 34 years, 29 years were teaching overseas in such diverse locations as India, Kuwait, Zambia, China, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Indonesia. Living, working, and raising a family in such cultural diversity demonstrated the power and importance of respecting and valuing the differences between peoples. After retiring out of Zambia, Tim and his wife Agnes, transitioned into global nomads and toured the globe each with a single suitcase spending one year in Turkey, one year in Belize and the final 6 years in Thailand. His traveling shoes behind him, Tim spends his time biking, gardening, swimming and juggling.


