Welcome to Krista Kelley as the New Director of the New Mexico Collaboration to End Hunger

Krista Kelley chats with Julia Price, director of The New Mexico Alliance for Children

Welcome to Krista Kelley, as she takes over as director of The New Mexico Collaboration to End Hunger!

Ms. Kelley brings a great combination of skills to the job: eleven years of management, fundraising, marketing, and community and government relations experience. And did we say that she also offers strategic leadership skills and a strong commitment to addressing and implementing hunger initiatives?

She comes to the collaboration from an organization that has a strong reputation in our community for putting people first, Adelante Development Center (where she served as vice president for development). 

Nancy Pope and Krista Kelley

Ms. Kelley, who takes over for Nancy Pope as director of the collaboration, is a native New Mexican (and graduate of the University of New Mexico). So she is well aware of the problems facing poor and hungry people within our borders. According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), more than 28% of New Mexico households suffer from food hardship.

The new director of the collaboration looks forward to moving forward with some of the initiatives that are already in place, including a partnership with Share Our Strength in the New Mexico NoKid Hungry Campaign, which was launched in February 2011.  The campaign, which  focuses on ending childhood hunger in the state by 2015, has helped to increase child access to summer food programs throughout our state.

“I have had an opportunity to observe the impact that the Collaboration to End Hunger and its partnership with Share Our Strength have made and I look forward to leading the next phase of the Collaboration’s vital efforts in New Mexico,” Ms. Kelley said.

Over the next year the New Mexico No Kid Hungry Campaign, in partnership with Dairy Max, will be working across southern New Mexico to provide outreach, mini-grants, and other resources to support schools to increase student access to school breakfast.

We at Bread New Mexico are grateful for our strong relationship with the collaboration and look forward to continuing our networking efforts under its new director Krista Kelley and its manager Sarah Newman.