Lucy Gerold, a commander with the Minneapolis Police Department, will leave to become interim executive director of the Minneapolis-St. Paul campuses of the Jeremiah program, an anti-poverty organization, beginning April 1.
Gerold, a city employee for 34 years, commands the department's Leadership and Organizational Development division, newly created by Police Chief Janee Harteau. Previously, she was a deputy chief and precinct commander.
The Jeremiah Program focuses on single women and their children. It describes itself on its website as a "nationally recognized nonprofit organization using a proven, holistic approach to transform families from poverty to prosperity two generations at a time." It says that at any given time, it currently serves 300 women and children at two sites in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
In a news release, Gerold is quoted as saying, "I have held almost every leadership position in the Minneapolis Police Department and I felt it was time to take my leadership skills to a different community organization. I believe in the Jeremiah model. I know from my work in law enforcement that real change takes place when you transform lives from the inside out, and that's what Jeremiah does."
