LaTonya Gates-Johnston

---

Summer 2026

By Shannon Doyle Bell

Author’s Note: There are some people whose work speaks long before you ever meet them. For me, LaTonya Gates-Johnston, Founder and Director of PAWKids, was one of those people. About 11 years ago I first heard about a small afterschool program growing in Grove Park, one of Atlanta’s historically most under-resourced communities. It was described simply as: a safe place for children after school. But even then, it was clear this was something more. What LaTonya has built through PAWKids is a response to gaps, to trauma, and to systems that have too often failed the very families they were meant to serve. And ultimately, it is a vision, one where her work is no longer needed at all. Being entrusted with someone’s story, especially one filled with so much resilience, faith, sacrifice, and purpose, is something I do not take lightly. So how did a woman with such difficult beginnings become a trusted mentor, leader, and advocate for hundreds of families across Atlanta? LaTonya credits her journey first to God, then the prayers of her grandmother, relentless determination, and the guidance of people who invested in her life along the way. Here is a glimpse of her layered story. 

LaTonya Gates Johnston has earned what many would call a metaphorical PhD in service to Atlanta’s Westside families and community. Her empathy comes from a deep-seeded place, her own story. LaTonya was born in a state prison to a mother battling heroin addiction and she was nearly given up to the state when the woman who raised her mother took her in. She arrived in, her grandmother, Claudia’s arms as a newborn shaking from the heroin detox. Claudia loved, cared for, and raised her alongside several other children who grew up with significant learning, emotional, and social challenges. Her siblings all grew to have multiple arrests, jail sentences, and battled drug addiction. Latonya was the only one spared from that cycle, but she would face another unexpected challenge, her own bundle of joy.

At 17-years old, LaTonya had become a mother to her son, Anthony, and was determined to raise him differently to break the cycles that had impacted generations of her family. It wouldn’t be without the help of her grandmother, who would now help raise the third generation of her family. Not much later, her daughter Larenzia was born. Now a single mother of two, she was in Forest Park with a new chapter at Atlanta Youth Academy that ultimately changed the course for her and her children.

MEETING THE JOHNSTON'S

As her children became school-age at Atlanta Youth Academy, Latonya was opened to a new set of struggles and understanding. The school would help her understand learning differences with proper evaluations. Anthony was diagnosed with dyslexia and Larenzia with selective mutism. With grace, love and support, Larenzia was helping lead worship after two short weeks at the school, showing LaTonya firsthand the power of a strong education. Atlanta Youth Academy was beginning a healing in her children and soon, herself. The leaders of Atlanta Youth Academy, Charles “Chuck” and JoElyn “JoJo” Johnston, and the Executive Director, Derrick Lockwood, were drawn to LaTonya. “Chuck, Jojo, and Derrick became my mentors,” she explains. "Their belief in me had a huge impact on me and my future. Before long I was helping with the PTA, teaching in the after-school program, and eventually becoming the director of the after-school programs. I found my leadership skills there.”

The Johnston's were part of planting Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church on Collier Rd. in the Upper Westside of Atlanta where LaTonya would become a member and find a new church community. Chuck and JoElyn were also residents of Grove Park by way of Buckhead. An intentional choice they made to invest in a struggling community. “Chuck believes that proximity matters and moved into the Grove Park community to bring new resources there and empower the leaders already in existence— not take them over. That left an impression on me.”

LaTonya was living on the east side of town when Chuck encouraged her to move to Grove Park. “I was already helping so many students afterschool already but I was hesitant to move to a community that was so close to the poverty I grew up in. I’m trying to leave that struggle no go back to it. God had other plans.” Confirmation came when Rev. Dr. Charles A. Harper III from Paradise Baptist Church handed Latonya the seed money out of the church renovation funds. “Chuck encouraged me and I trust that God brought me here.”  

AND SO IT BEGINS

PAWKids did not begin with a building, a budget, or a strategic plan. It began in a backyard. In 2015, LaTonya started the program with just five children in a neighbor’s yard in Grove Park. What she witnessed in those early days shaped everything that followed. The children needed more than a place to go after school. They needed support, stability, encouragement, and people who genuinely believed in their future. While Rev. Harper III helped with the initial funding, Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church helped her structure the organization as a 501(c)(3). With the support of the two churches, the foundation was formed and so was the name— P for Paradise and AW for Atlanta Westside. “PAW” represents a coming together across communities that might not otherwise intersect. Two different Christian denominations. Two different majority races of people. Two different cultures. Yet— one city, one zip code, and only a few miles of distance between them. As the needs of families became more apparent, the organization grew in response. With generous seed funding and community support, LaTonya purchased and transformed former trap houses on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, aka "Bankhead Hwy," into safe and welcoming spaces for children. A place once associated with harm became a place centered on healing, growth, and opportunity. The expansion of PAWKids was never about growth for recognition’s sake. Every new step came from listening closely to the needs of the community.

By 2017, PAWKids opened The Gathering Place, creating space for parent support, counseling, and respite. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everyday life, the organization adapted once again by launching Claudia’s House food pantry, serving neighbors and seniors with food, hygiene products, and essential supplies.

Over time, PAWKids expanded its behavioral health services, provided support for families impacted by gentrification, and opened the PAWKids Plaza, an outdoor community space designed for gathering, play, and connection. Each step forward has been guided by one central question: What do our (Grove Park) families need to truly thrive?

A MISSION ROOTED IN EMPOWERMENT

At the heart of PAWKids is a mission that is both simple and profound: To provide families with resources that empower and encourage them, while promoting Christian values, building stronger communities, and developing self-sufficiency.

That last phrase—self-sufficiency—is not just language. It is the goal. LaTonya often speaks about wanting to “work herself out of a job.” Not because she’s thinking about her retirement plans, but because the ultimate success of PAWKids would mean a community so supported, so resourced, and so connected that it no longer needs intervention. It’s a bold vision. And it reframes everything.

PAWKids is not designed to create dependency, it is designed to build independence. To strengthen families. To restore dignity. To create a community that can sustain itself.

RESPONDING TO REAL NEEDS

Today, PAWKids serves far more than the original children. It supports 50 students directly, while reaching hundreds more families across the Grove Park and Bankhead communities each week. Additionally, providing food distribution to 1200 each week, therapy, academic intervention, and senior help, the organization has become a hub of holistic support with a solid model built to provide a depth of care. Every program reflects an understanding that challenges in this community are interconnected. Education, mental health, economic stability, food scarcity, and family dynamics all influence one another. So the response must be just as comprehensive.

The model for behavioral health services was and is a non-negotiable for LaTonya who for herself had conditions ignored, unrecognized, or addressed when she was growing up. “I have ADHD, Dyslexia, Behavior Disorder— all ignored, not because my grandmother was being irresponsible, but because she herself had a second-grade education,” Latonya explains. “What she DID focus on was the behavior of me and my siblings and how we treated people. She didn’t care that we brought home F’s on our report card. It was what we earned in conduct that she looked for.”

Every student starts the program with a full psychological and educational evaluation to understand how they need to be supported in order to learn. “Our kids’ test scores are some of the lowest in the city. So we raised more money ourselves and brought in three speech-language pathologists. We’re using Orton-Gillingham methods. KIPP gives us access to student records so we could better support kids academically and behaviorally,” says Latonya.

In addition, students are given mandatory therapy once a week with a behavioral health program led by Psychiatrist, Christie Pettit, who personally seed-funded its start. She and her team of therapists provide each student with mandatory therapy once a week. Each parent is also required to have a therapy session once a month with their child to know and understand the challenges faced and the growth happening.  

“Our kids are facing unimaginable trauma and some battle suicidal thoughts. We have faced the loss of one of my students at only 15 years old to suicide. I understand their pain. I became suicidal around 13 years to 22 years old and all I want more than anything is to support these kids out of that pain. Show them they are loved and believed in so they can imagine and fight for their futures,” she says.

She’s not just like an “Auntie” to the kids anymore. In 2016, her son King was born to a mother in no position to raise him. LaTonya would adopt him and provide for him the way her Grandmother/Mother, Claudia would provide for her. Taking him in, loving him and help him thrive. Today’s he’s a happy rising fifth-grader and often seen helping to serve the children and families at PAWKids.

After 11 years, PAWKids continues to grow and adjust to the needs of the students and community. That includes the rebuilding of the new PAWKids house for the student’s learning. A project led by her friend and Board Member, Jim Irwin, who is part of the mastermind team responsible for The Forth Hotel in the Old Forth Ward. Slated to be finished in September, this building will have designs that will bring the entire experience of every student and family that enters to an elevated and inspiring space they deserve. They will have a cafe-like kitchen, podcast studio, study and tutoring room, and yoga room. 

HOT SUMMER IN THE CITY

The work doesn’t stop for summer break. It actually becomes more full-time with the children. The first day of summer camp began the day after Memorial Day. There is no room to stop the work. No room to risk kids going without food. Those worries are removed and replaced with unusual experiences in nature and other enrichment activities.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF LEADERSHIP

What stands out most about LaTonya is not just what she has built, but how she leads. Her work is deeply personal. Having grown up in poverty and trauma herself, she understands the realities many of these families face, not from a distance, but from lived experience. “I may see someone walking down the street, clearly living the street life, and will have them come inside, take a shower, give them new clothes, and a meal,” says Gates. “I want them to feel a sense of hope.”

Through all of the growth, PAWKids’ purpose remains unchanged. It has always been about responding to the real needs of families and building pathways toward long-term stability— believing that true success would mean helping create a community strong enough to sustain itself. A community where families have access to and can provide for themselves the resources, support, and opportunities they need to thrive.

That perspective shapes the way she leads. Her approach is honest, relational, and rooted in trust. She does not position herself as the answer. Instead, she walks alongside the community, believing that lasting transformation happens when people are empowered, connected, and given the tools to build stronger futures for themselves and for the generations that follow.

In a rapidly changing Atlanta, where growth and development often overshadow long-standing communities, PAWKids offers a different narrative. It reminds us that real progress is not just about new buildings or new investments. It is about people. It is about whether families who have always been here are given the opportunity, and the support, to stay, to grow, and to thrive. LaTonya Gates-Johnston is doing that work every day with a small and mighty team and her loyal supporters who believe in the future of the neighborhood. Quietly. Consistently. With purpose. And perhaps most powerfully of all, she is building something designed not to last forever, but to create a future where it doesn’t have to. If you would like to support the mission of PAWKids,  visit www.pawkids.org.

For more photos and story, visit www.upperwestsideatlanta.com

Photos: SDB-360, PAWKids, 

FB: @GroveParkPAWKids

IG: @pawkids_atl