LaVar Young is President and CEO of Newark Now, a non-profit organization in Newark, New Jersey that provides residents with skills, tools, and support to transform their neighborhoods through grassroots community efforts geared at improving safety, economizing independence, and civic participation. Prior to this, LaVar served as Director of Fathers Now at the Newark Comprehensive Center for Fathers, where he was instrumental in bringing national attention to the organization’s exceptional outcomes with fathers in transition. In 2012, he received the Martin Luther King Visionary of the Future Award from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and he has been featured on CNN’s Building up America, USA Today, and Man Up, a documentary on a Fatherless Nation.