About Kelly

Kelly’s focus is on the needs of people in crisis. And she knows what it is to live in crisis mode. Growing up in a solid family with two loving parents, her life became unstable when her parents divorced in her late teens. She graduated high school and went onto college.  But the instability led to some poor choices during the heaviest period of the country’s opioid addictions and Kelly experienced that firsthand. For a time in her early 20’s, she was homeless, a victim of domestic abuse, and she turned to crime to survive. She served time in detention and was released just two days before her daughter was born.

“My daughter saved me. Literally, it was because of her I turned my life around.” she said.

In addition to the WIC food assistance for new mothers, Ramsey County had a placement program that included a parenting course. It was this program that led her to both pursuing her education, and finding an internship program that has over time developed into an amazing career with Interfaith Action, now as the Director of the Department of Indian Work.

Kelly has had to navigate government services for many in her family as well. When her father became ill, she moved him in with her family and began to navigate the medical system to get him onto health insurance. At the time, she was 7 months pregnant with her second child, and they suddenly discovered her father had small cell lung cancer. He died 2 weeks after the diagnosis. Kelly was able to turn to Ramsey County again for burial assistance.

In 2019, she went back to Saint Paul College and graduated with her associate’s degree, nonprofit certificate, and business certificate in 2022. Currently, she is attending the University of Minnesota, and is looking to continue on to receive a Masters of Tribal Government.

Kelly started as an intern at Interfaith Action in 2015. She became a coordinator by 2016, and was promoted to become a program director in 2019. In that time, her role has grown to overseeing four program areas, managing a staff of seven and is responsible for a $1.5 million budget. The program areas include emergency services, out of school time enrichment, a diabetes education series, and an economic mobility hub that focuses on the health, career, financial stability and community connectedness of their clients. Interfaith Action’s Department of Indian Work serves 3,138 people in 1,055 households.

She has worked with Ramsey County’s Workforce Solutions to create and hire the first ever American Indian Community Coordinator Fellow position. With Ramsey County’s Early Childhood team, she has helped bring family centered coaching to the Economic Mobility Hub for American Indians in the East Metro, and with Ramsey County’s Food Security Workgroup, she has championed the work on the County’s food sustainability and security plan.

Kelly is active engaged in the community:

• She is the Chair of Saint Paul Indians in Action, which interacts with ten departments of Ramsey County.
• She is seated on four boards: the Mille Lacs Tribal Housing Board, the Twahe Foundation Board, the Ain Dah Yung Center Board, and the Montessori American Indian Childcare Center Board.
• She serves on the Roseville Area School District’s American Indian Parent Committee.

In whatever spare time she can find, Kelly loves reading, sewing, watching Marvel movies, and video gaming with her family.