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Kathy Kelly, Executive Director
kathy@megafamilyproject.org

Kathy Kelly has a Master’s in Social Work from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Georgia. Prior to attending UGA, Kathy lived, worked, and attended school in Marietta, GA.

Kathy has been involved in politics and social justice causes for the past 17 years. At the University of Georgia, she was president of the Young Democrats and had the honor of creating the largest chapter in the state. She worked on Al Gore’s presidential campaign, and was an Alternate Delegate for Gore at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

Kathy has experience working as an auditor for a major accounting firm, working with chemically dependent and mentally ill people, and working as a small business owner.

Prior to graduate school, Kathy completed a year of service for AmeriCorps working with disadvantaged children in the Baltimore city school system in Maryland. She also volunteered as an advocate for the mentally ill at the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and a Disaster Action Team responder for the American Red Cross.

During graduate school, Kathy completed an internship with the Human Rights Campaign, which gave her a first-hand look into the national LGBT political scene. At HRC, she worked with the Political Action Campaign staff, and she will tell you that was one of the hardest non-paying jobs she ever worked!

While in graduate school, Kathy worked with a small group of students to force Catholic University to better comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. When she arrived at Catholic University, the school of social work did not have an elevator for disabled teachers and students to get to the upper-level classrooms of the building, but by the time she graduated, that building had an elevator. Kathy understands accessibility issues for disabled people since she herself spent a considerable amount of time having to use crutches in order to get around.

After completing her graduate degree, Kathy worked for 4 1/2 years as a social worker for people with HIV and AIDS at AID Atlanta. At AID Atlanta, in addition to working with an extremely large client load, she taught training modules to new case managers and also co-authored the client newsletter.

In early 2004, she became active in LGBT politics in Georgia as a result of the extreme right-wing attacks on LGBT families. She is the founder and executive director of Marriage Equality Georgia and the MEGA Family Project, which together have thousands of members across the state of Georgia.

Kathy also had the pleasure of working as the Campaign Coordinator of the Georgians Against Discrimination campaign to defeat the anti-gay marriage amendment.

Kathy received the Atlanta Pride Committee Community Builder award in 2004 and 2005, and also had the honor of winning the best up-and-coming activist award in the 2005 Southern Voice readers' poll.

Kathy lives with her wife, Lisa, and daughter, Maggie, in Decatur, GA.

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