Ronn Jordan is the proud father of three wonderful kids (Christopher, Samantha, and Geralyn), and son of a full-blooded Mohawk Indian father and Cherokee Indian/Italian mother. Ronn is a nationally known Community Leader/Organizer for over fifteen years in the Northwest Bronx and has served as Board Rep., Secretary, Vice President, & President of a nearly forty-year old leader driven Community Based Organization (CBO). Ronn’s journey in the Social Justice movement began with his children’s education. On his journey Ronn has taken that movement across the United States as a Leader with the National People’s Action Network (NPA), the Center for Community Change (CCC) and the Gamaliel Foundation. The list has grown to include most issues facing America’s most vulnerable population, poor people of color. Ronn wants to empower people who have been traditionally under served and exploited by all levels of government, Wall Street and big corporations. Ronn believes that racial, economic and social justice should be fundamental rights of every person living in America.
As a literacy coördinator Ronn founded the North Fordham Community Literacy Network (CLN) to organize all stakeholders in the neighborhoods of thirteen schools to make sure that all children would be able to read by the third grade. In 2002 Ronn was able to partner the Bronx Zoo with thirteen elementary schools to create Totally Into Getting Everyone Reading (TIGER) day celebrations where parents, elected officials, business owners and youth leaders come in and read with the children in grades K through 3, TIGER Day celebrations continue to this day. This partnership started as a month-long third grade reading contest where the child that read the most books in each school was awarded with a one-year family pass to the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society, a one year subscription to National Geographic for Kids and the Wildlife Conservation Society magazine for the school, and was part of the ribbon cutting ceremony to the Tiger Mountain exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. At the end of the year the entire third grade from the thirteen schools took a class trip to the Bronx Zoo for a day of literacy celebration. The sustainability of this partnership has been one of the proudest achievement in Ronn’s professional life.
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