New York Jets Players, Coaches Pledge $800K to Fight Social Inequality

Dec. 20 (UPI) — The New York Jets announced that players, coaches and team executives will donate $800,000 to five non-profit organizations to fight social inequality.

Players and individuals from the team’s coaching staff committed $200,000 to the cause, which the organization matched. Jets Chairman and CEO Christopher Johnson also contributed a $250,000 donation.

The New York Jets Foundation and the NFL Foundation’s Player Matching Grant committed additional funds to help the team’s mission of social equality.

“I am extremely proud of our team for their commitment to empowering our communities through their donations and participation in outreach programs,” said Johnson in a statement. “While it was a collective effort within the organization to make this donation possible, the players desire to make a difference fueled this endeavor. We are excited to help position these five organizations to continue their work in our communities.”

The Jets have a leadership committee, which formed in 2017, that is comprised of players Kelvin Beachum, Ben Ijalana, Steve McClendon and Josh McCown, along with Johnson, Jets President Neil Glat and other executives of the team. The group selected the non-profit organizations that received the donations.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration, JustLeadershipUSA, Breakthrough New York, The Legal Aid Society’s Decarceration Project, and The New York Foundling each will receive a $160,000 contribution from the team.

The aforementioned non-profits have core values based on education opportunities, community and police relations, criminal justice reform and other issues that relate to poverty and racial inequality.

“Inadequate access to resources for education, poverty reduction, or racial equality has effected every member of our locker room,” said Beachum in a statement to the team’s official website. “From the communities we came from, to the one we now call home, it is abundantly clear that these organizations are not only needed but are causing direct change in the fight against social inequality.”

The recent community outreach from the Jets is nothing new from the franchise. Johnson pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts in 2017.