Before Johnny Wilson became a resource for thousands of people in Cumberland County, he was a boy watching his grandmother make something out of almost nothing.
She raised him on a farm without indoor plumbing. Some meals came from fish they caught or berries they picked. Money was scarce, and keeping food on the table came before watching Wilson play basketball or football.
Still, she gave.
She cooked for neighbors and church gatherings. If she had $5, she could not spare, Wilson remembered, she would find a way to give someone $1.
“We didn’t have anything to give, and my grandmother still gave,” he said.
That lesson became the quiet inheritance behind Wilson’s 27 years at Fayetteville Urban Ministry, where he now serves as president and chief executive officer. He sees its work not as charity performed at a distance, but as one neighbor recognizing another.
Fayetteville Urban Ministry’s mission is “to show God’s compassion for our neighbors in need and thus build our community together.” Wilson’s life gives those words a face. He knows what it means to need a dependable adult, a meal or an opportunity.
“I aspire to be everything that I did not have,” Wilson has said. “I want to be a resource to any and everyone.”
Wilson came to Fayetteville in 1995 to attend Methodist College, now Methodist University. He studied criminal justice and was fascinated by the system, but he understood something important about himself before graduation.
“I knew I didn’t want to lock people up,” he said.
He wanted to reach young people before a poor decision hardened into a record. Wilson volunteered as a mentor in the ministry’s Find-A-Friend program. After graduation, the organization offered him a position working with children.
“I just knew I wanted to make a difference,” he said.
What began with one mentor and one child grew into a career spanning the ministry’s four core programs: Find-A-Friend, Emergency Assistance, the Adult Literacy and Education Center and the Nehemiah Project.
Find-A-Friend provides mentoring and enrichment for young people. Emergency Assistance offers food, clothing, and other resources. The Adult Literacy and Education Center helps people strengthen reading skills, prepare for high school equivalency exams, learn English, or pursue citizenship. The Nehemiah Project mobilizes volunteers for critical home repairs.
Different doors lead into the ministry, but dignity is meant to meet people at each one. Wilson said the programs serve more than 15,000 people annually, free of charge.
Keeping that promise while expanding the organization is among his proudest achievements.
“As long as I’m here, and as long as the board will allow me to be here, all the services we provide will continue to be free,” he said.
Wilson points to the Manning Family Find-A-Friend Youth Enrichment Center as proof of what a committed community can accomplish. The building rose from open ground and, he said, was paid off before the final brick was laid through support from individuals and foundations.
“That’s more than legendary,” Wilson said. “It showed the relationships that we cultivated.”
Compassion requires more than good intentions. It needs tutors, mentors, repair crews, pantry volunteers and donors. It also needs careful stewardship. Wilson said annual audits have consistently shown that 86 cents to more than 90 cents of every donated dollar support program and direct services. The latest figure he cited was more than 88 cents.
Wilson has received the Key and Coin to the City of Fayetteville, the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s Public Service Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Relations Commission, among other honors.
The honors make him bashful. His own measure is simpler.
“Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do?” he said.
Wilson completed 27 years with the ministry on Aug. 23. Asked what people should remember about his leadership; he turned the attention outward. Anyone with shelter, food, clean clothes and an income, he said, has an opportunity and responsibility to encourage someone else.
“Find your why,” he said. “Get involved.”
Community members can give, volunteer individually, organize a workplace or church service day, mentor a child, help an adult learner, or join a home-repair project. Wilson said first-time volunteers often arrive unaware of the ministry’s reach. Then they serve beside others, and their view widens.
“Johnny, I had no idea,” he hears them say. “I had no idea this place exists and y’all do all of this.”
Wilson believes service interrupts the tunnel vision of busy lives. It reminds people who helped them and what earlier generations sacrificed. Everyone has a schedule, he said, but “you make time for your passionate things.”
For Wilson, that passion is rooted in memory: a grandmother whose cupboard was not full, but whose hand remained open. She showed him that generosity is measured by what someone is willing to share when another person needs it more.
Twenty-seven years later, Wilson is still sharing that inheritance, one young person, one learner, one family and one repaired home at a time.
To volunteer, donate or learn more about Fayetteville Urban Ministry’s programs, visit fayurbmin.org or call 910-483-5944. The ministry is located at 701 Whitfield St. in Fayetteville.

(Photo: Johnny Wilson celebrates 27 years with Fayetteville Urban Ministry this year. His dedication and service to the Cumberland County community are commendable. Photo courtesy of Johnny Wilson)