Natalie Kelly

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Natalie Kelly is a graphic designer, educator and environmental activist and consultant who founded the website My Green Birmingham in February 2009, contracted to head the Birmingham Sustainability Commission and organized sustainability efforts for the City of Birmingham in 2014, and is now president of SUSTAIN.

Kelly earned an associates degree in visual communication at the Art Institute of Atlanta in 1997 and founded the design firm InterPrint in Atlanta the November. In 2002 she was hired as a designer for the American Cancer Society. After leaving that job in 2003 she relaunched her own business as iDream Art & Design and enrolled at Auburn University, majoring in English.

In 2008 Kelly became an AmeriCorps service leader for Hands On Atlanta and came to Birmingham in 2009 as a tutor for Birmingham READS. She remained in town as a service assistant for AmeriCorps programs administered by United Way of Central Alabama through the summer of 2011. That December she began working as an after school instructor with the Birmingham Regional Empowerment and Development Center in Adamsville.

Meanwhile, Kelly founded her environmental consulting business, Kelly Stewardship Partners (now Kelly Green Marketing) in early 2009. She launched the My Green Birmingham website at the same time and became active in promoting sustainability through various events and partnerships.

In April 2014 Kelly became a technical instructor for The Arc of Jefferson County. That June her consulting business, Kelly Green Marketing, was awarded a $64,000 contract from the City of Birmingham to resurrect and manage the Birmingham Sustainability Commission, to market sustainability efforts on My Green Birmingham and elsewhere, to secure grant funding for sustainability initiatives, to compile a complete sustainability plan for the city, and to promote recycling.

References

  • "Natalie Kelly" (n.d.) Citizen Alum. Auburn University College of Liberal Arts' Community and Civic Engagement Initiative - accessed June 19, 2014
  • Bowser, Edward T. (September 26, 2013) "Agents of Change: Why go green? Natalie Kelly of MyGreenBirmingham.com makes the case for green living." The Birmingham News
  • Bryant, Joseph D. (June 19, 2014) "How much green does it cost to 'go green?' Birmingham spending $60,000 to salvage recycling, environmental programs." The Birmingham News