HEY! was offered a house and not just any house.  But the house of Mother Kathryn Johnston, who at 92 years old lost her life while trying to defend it during a botched raid in 2006.

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Helping Empower Youth (HEY!) is an initiative advocating for underserved youth in metro-Atlanta. If you want a better society, you must do it through your own efforts.  Our mission is to provide an opportunity to inspire, motivate and mobilize young people to take action that changes their world. 

As the city of Atlanta placed official notice that all unpermitted water sales were to cease, it left a great deal of the young men we engage in a situation where they had to make decisions… find an alternative legally or illegally. The challenge is that COVID-19 closed all city and public and a lot of private youth serving facilities that would have provided a safe place for our young men This coupled with the financial impact of COVID-19 it put the HEY! field granting abilities at risk. This forced us into daily programming, but we didn't have a space.  Programming took place in the living room, garage, and front yard of the co-founders. Through shear tenacity and perseverance the work continued and people took notice! The house has remained vacant until now.  

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