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John Young
Uplifting Villages, One Home at a Time
By Monica Davis
Founder, Exceptional People Magazine
It takes a village to raise a child. That is the saying today and a true statement. It also takes a village to build a home, and it takes a village to build hope and self-sufficiency.
John Young, a former clothing manufacturer, has dedicated his life to building hope and homes within Native Americans tribes.
Inspired by a tragic news article about Native American elders who were often found frozen to death in their homes every year; his dream started with just one house. Many homes had no heat, electricity or running water.
John is not only building homes, but he continues to build trust among the tribes as he helps them change their lives and become self-sufficient.
Disturbed by what he read, John decided to take action by adopting a native elder through a national charity. After meeting his adopted grandmother, John was shocked and appalled at what was before him. This was his defining moment. That moment he knew something had to change; and change it did. His adopted grandmother was living in an abandoned trailer without any means of communication. John's dream and desire to be a catalyst for change began with building a home for Katherine Red Feather.
His approach, however, was different. He wanted to involve Katherine's family in helping to build the home, to teach them the process so they could become self-sufficient.
With the help of friends and raising money and partnering with the University of Washington, John's dream came true. From that one home, an organization was formed that has changed the lives of hundreds of families 15 years later.
The Red Feather Development Group, named after Katherine Red Feather, has been an amazing force in helping to unite Native American communities and getting them involved in the process of rebuilding their lives, communities and homes.
The Editor-in-Chief of Exceptional People Magazine was delighted to speak with John Young about his life-long commitment to Native Americans.
Monica: Can you explain the purpose of the Red Feather Development Group and why you created it?
Robert Young: Red Feather is similar to Habitat for Humanity. In fact, much of our program, we started when the organization was founded 15-plus years ago, we really looked at who was the most successful home builder in the world and what they did to get families engaged in the process. It was more about getting the families involved, having them work alongside volunteers in the construction of their home, and that's what our program does. But we go beyond that. We're much more on the educational end. We teach Native Americans to build their homes, oftentimes using their own resources. If you look at the reservations in the northern plains and obviously in the southern areas of the country, as well, there's a tremendous amount of wheat being grown. Typically, those fields are burned off after harvest, and we really wanted to see how that material could be used to construct homes.
Monica: You're a former clothing manufacturer who had no experience or skills in building a home, so what inspired you to take on this type of project or mission?
Robert Young: Pure ignorance was the main reason I started this whole thing. I saw a PBS documentary of a Habitat build that was more of a blitz build. They built a home with volunteers, mainly skilled, professional contractors who donated their time but they built a home in four days. After seeing conditions on the reservation, I showed this to some friends e and said, "If they could do this in four days, surely we can pull this off in a couple of weeks with a dozen volunteers." We were actually able to do it. We built a home in two weeks, and it was a life-changing experience. We spent time on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the construction and saw the thousands of families that were in similar circumstances. We decided then that we just couldn't walk away from it. We began collecting money and brought down volunteers every summer to do what we could to help the community.
Monica: The first home that you built was for a woman by the name of Katherine Red Feather. What was it about her that inspired you to help her build a home?
Robert Young: When I read an article about how many elderly people had frozen to death on reservations in the northern plains during a severe winter, what led me to become involved with Katherine and, more specifically, the Pine Ridge Reservation, was another article in the Indian Country newspaper about adopting elderly people on the reservation. It was more of a letter-writing campaign, and that's one of the things I liked about it. You weren't just writing a check, sending it off, expecting that the elder's life had completely changed. You wrote an elder on the reservation, they wrote back. It was called the Adopt-A-Grandparent program. It's no longer around but I thought it was amazing that you could find out what was going on from someone experiencing the situation. That's what intrigued me the most.
Monica: Your dream started, of course, with just that one house and now your organization has grown tremendously over the years. To whom do you owe that tremendous success?
Robert Young: There have been so many people and it's just individuals that really got behind us in the beginning. It's mainly been individuals that have been so strong about keeping us going. Now, this is a pretty tough economic time, but we have found that our members and donors have really stepped up to help us continue our work. We've been able to grow but our focus of building one house at a time has definitely changed. We now teach communities how to do this on their own and implement reservation-based programs. That's our focus and we can continue this kind of work only because our members have really stepped up and have been incredibly generous.
Monica: Even though the people pay for supplies, once the homes are completed, do they have mortgages?
Robert Young: They do. They have a mortgage for the materials only. We can build a three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half, starter home but the homeowner is involved with some design aspects and color coordination. We try to give them as much input as we can because the communities that we're working with are so far below the poverty line that for many families it's a difficult process to become homeowners. So we want them to become involved and feel that they have a role in the design and construction process.
Monica: In addition to learning how to build homes what else do you think they're learning from the overall process?
Robert Young: What we hope they're learning is how to work within their communities, to organize, get volunteers, become involved in a project and become energized to know that they can do this on their own.
Monica: So if I understand you correctly, a home is usually built within that time frame?
Robert Young: Yes. It's pretty quick and it's a pretty amazing process to see. Every day when you come back to the home projects, you're looking at it and you go, "Wow, I can't believe what we accomplished." That, again, is just something that is so empowering to the community because normally what they're used to seeing is a project that takes months if not years. They see this happening in 28 days and they start looking at the possibility of creating their own programs to do this on a community level. And they start it that's the excitement. You see the excitement in people's eyes when they begin to realize, "Hey, we can do this, which is not rocket science. We don't need to really go back to college for the next five years to figure out how to build this home." That, for them and for us, that's priceless.
Monica: What states do you mainly focus on?
Robert Young: Right now we're focused on two communities: the Northern Cheyenne nation in Montana and the Hopi nation of northern Arizona.
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