Deion Sanders joins hands with Koch network's 'roomful of winners'
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders on Monday praised the conservative financiers in the influential Koch network as a “roomful of winners,” willing to invest in programs that give a “hand up” to community groups.
Sanders, now a network sports analyst, appeared at the exclusive conclave of more than 550 wealthy donors to tout Urban Specialists, a Dallas anti-violence program that receives funding and technical help from Stand Together, a year-old Koch group that supports community-based groups.
The nearly two-decade-old Urban Specialists transforms former gang members into what organizers call “ambassadors of peace” in tough Dallas neighborhoods. The non-profit mentors children and provides security at 18 of the city’s schools. Sanders, a former Dallas Cowboy, has worked with the program for 17 years.
Sanders said he had no hesitation about collaborating with the network, which has become a powerful force in politics as it works to advance donors’ brand of free-market conservatism in Washington and state capitols.
“I see help and resources,” he said of the Koch-aligned donors. “I see a roomful of way-makers.”
“Everyone here is someone that has the ability to instantaneously to provoke change,” Sanders told reporters. “It’s a roomful of winners, and you think I don’t want to be a part of that? That’s crazy.”
He later received a standing ovation from the donors who filled a ballroom to hear Sanders and the program’s leaders.
Stand Together backs 30 groups that organizers call “catalysts for social change.” Each group receives at least $25,000 in seed money and win larger grants to scale up their operations. Evan Feinberg, Stand Together’s executive director, said the network already has committed to giving $4 million over three years to Urban Specialists to support its Texas work.
Dallas minister Rev. Omar Jahwar, the organizations’s founder, said Urban Specialists has served between 2,000 and 2,500 children in Dallas and will expand to Atlanta, Milwaukee and Washington.
Of the Koch support, Jahwar said: “When you are knocking on so many doors, trying to get help for the people that we serve and someone opens the door, what you say is ‘Thank you.’ ”
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