by Steve Wartenburg
Columbus CEO
Johnaka Young’s new, entrepreneurial life began late at night, while she slept, perhaps dreaming of candles.
“I woke up one morning [in late 2019], and the first thing I started thinking about was making candles,” Young says. “It must have been from a dream. Which is bizarre, because I wasn’t a candle person.”
Her dream quickly turned into an action plan. Young spent the next several hours on the internet watching how-to videos on the craft of candle making.
Now, almost two years after her awakening, Atmosphere Candles is a growing business. Young, 42, also has launched a line of lip balms and is forming a guild to help other women, especially single mothers and women of color, promote their homemade products.
Families Flourish gives Young support to dream
Young, a single mother of two girls, Giada and Giselle (now 14 and 12), worked for Dublin Cleaners as a customer service manager in 2019. She was then accepted into the Families Flourish pilot program…
