Skip to main content
New Orleans Saints
Advertising

Saints News | New Orleans Saints | NewOrleansSaints.com

Presented by

New Orleans Saints defensive end Cam Jordan continues to expand his reach

All-Pro partners with Crescent City Corps to provide leadership, community engagement training for police officers

New Orleans Saints All-Pro defensive end Cameron Jordan has teamed up with Crescent City Corps (CCC), a New Orleans-based non-profit that equips police officers with leadership development and community engagement training so that they can work alongside citizens to build a more just, safe, and inclusive city. After a successful pilot program with 10 officers in 2019, with the help of Jordan, they are now expanding to train over 80 NOPD officers in the next two years.

Cam Jordan and his non-profit God Iz Love Foundation

New Orleans Mayor, LaToya Cantrell

Superintendent of Police, Shaun Ferguson

Crescent City Corps, Executive Director Brent Godfrey

The official measurement ledger from the NFL Combine for the 2011 draft class posts "not available" as the listed wingspan for Cam Jordan.

Probably, accurate, because neither the NFL, nor the New Orleans Saints when they drafted Jordan, possibly could have forecast the reach that the three-time All-Pro would have on and off the field.

The latest entry on Jordan's expansive ledger of giving back came Monday afternoon, with the announcement the partnership of his God Iz Love foundation with Crescent City Corps. CCC is a New Orleans-based non-profit that equips police officers with leadership development and community engagement training to new first responders and law enforcement officers with a focus on racial equity, community engagement, and positive social change.

After a successful pilot program with 10 officers in 2019, the program will expand to train more than 80 New Orleans Police Department officers in the next two years, with Jordan committing more than $100,000 to its funding.

Jordan said last summer's national unrest led to him seeking a way to make an impact in addition to the countless hours of community service he already provides.

"From as far back as you can remember, you've always felt some sort of divide between my own personal safety, and that of a policing entity," he said. "And then, going forward and especially within this last 18 months, and being a part of some of these peaceful protests even here in New Orleans, you think about, what can you do.

"You go through these emotional interchanges, whether it's defund the police or abolish the police fully. It's along these lines of defund the police – and I say defund the police, in terms of reinvesting into the community, and what capacities can we do so.

"This feels like this could be potentially a good step to take with Crescent City Corps and the training program that they've implemented. I mean, you think about how they're taking 16 police officers going through this program, and training them in anti-racism training, equality training, leadership training, and then pushing them back out. And it's like, you hope that this will create a positive change.

"This sort of gives me a sense of hope for a positive change, and that's what it's about. If we create some sort of positive impact, where one day the chief of police is a graduate of this program, the future mayor – it's all about the future and how we can try and affect that. That's why I'm so hands on with this program, because I want to see the positive change happening."

He personally reached out to the mayor's office and police department last year in an effort to effect change.

"I remember being on that conference call," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said. "With his leadership, his support, as well as our internal leadership – him wanting to listen to see what could he do to advance constitutional policing practices, but for us to be better in terms of how we serve our residents and visitors every single day.

New Orleans Saints All-Pro defensive end Cam Jordan has teamed up with Crescent City Corps (CCC), a New Orleans-based non-profit that equips police officers with leadership development and community engagement training

"It's about embracing programs, as well as resources and initiatives, to be better on the ground – meaning, our officers. So we're excited to support Crescent City Corps. This is just another step in the right direction to being the best that we can be, not only in the city of New Orleans, but representing and being a model for the United States."

Superintendent of Police Shaun Ferguson recalled Jordan asking, " 'What can I do to help our city? What can I do to help our police department?' And here we are, today. He said he would do something, and this is what he's doing. We appreciate you investing in our city.

"This training is about getting investment into our new officers, our younger officers. These are patrolmen who are receiving this training, and in doing so, they become the future leaders. We're looking for ways to be innovative, and (Crescent City Corps executive director) Brent (Godfrey) brought this plan to us and we absolutely embraced it."

Godfrey said the effect of the training multiplies.

"Reimagined public safety isn't overnight work," Godfrey said. "It's not easy work, and it's not work that any one of us, or even one group of us, can do alone. The challenges we face have deep roots, and even though many of these challenges affect us differently, they affect us all. But we are also each other's medicine, and we must keep that in mind as we continue this work.

"Over the next six months, a group of 16 New Orleans police officers will become the second class of Crescent City Corps fellows. But more importantly they'll have the chance to build and deepen relationships with members of our community, to learn how they can support the work of positive social change, so that they can bring that same spirit of healing, of justice, of community rootedness into their work not just in their work not just as first responders, but back into the agencies and departments that are responsible for public safety here in our city."

That's what Jordan sees: Investment in his city.

"I don't know if I call myself a transplant at this point anymore," he said. "I've had four kids here, they are New Orleanians. When they look back at it, I would want them to say we tried to do something that would make them proud.

"My mind is always, the more you can do. And I feel like I've stuck to that. It's always one percent better every day, and I feel like you guys have been asking me questions about how to get better since I got to the Saints. And it's beyond the Saints now. It's about being a part of this community, it's about being part of this city. It's about knowing that in this foundation of effects that we've had as Saints being a part of this city, I think we can always try to do more for us."

New Orleans Saints All-Pro defensive end Cam Jordan has teamed up with Crescent City Corps (CCC), a New Orleans-based non-profit that equips police officers with leadership development and community engagement training

Related Content

Advertising