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Issue: Spring 2016 | Posted: April 25, 2016

Becky Johnson

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Distinguished Achievement in Not-for-Profit

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For Union University alumna Becky Johnson, political dreams have transformed into a passion to improve the health of children across the country.

Working as a presidential political appointee in the George W. Bush administration, Johnson believed she would continue with a ������������ in politics following her 2005 graduation with a political science major.

However, her plans soon changed when she caught the vision for a new nonprofit alongside now-President Lisa Gable.

The organization, the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), began with 21 founding members. Johnson, the executive director of HWCF, joined at the start and has built the member base to more than 300.

“We had an audacious goal,” Johnson says, “to be a part of the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic. I wanted to help support this goal and provided common sense solutions.”

Today, Johnson says, when people “walk through a grocery store, there are more options for you to make the best choice for you and your family than there were before.”

Through the Together Counts program, HWCF also provides “free standards-aligned curriculum and tools to teachers nationwide” and gives grants to schools for physical education, sporting or cafeteria equipment.

“Traveling to schools where a playground or a garden didn’t exist before but now does because of our programs is immensely rewarding,” Johnson says.

Although Johnson no longer works in government, she says many people at Union helped shape who she is now. Her time at Union University, she says, made her realize that the “ends of the earth” may very well be in the workplace. And the example of many from Union “should drive all of us to be set apart wherever God places us.”