Keyla Kelly

“How do you do it all?”

That is the question people who have the pleasure of meeting, working with, or knowing Keyla Kelly in any capacity often ask her. Keyla is a mother, activist, non-profit Director, volunteer, the list goes on. No problem is too great or list is too long for her to tackle. Her response is always “I don't know now but I’ll figure it out”. Her energy, dedication, and commitment are contagious and inspiring to those around her.

Keyla is Director of Fields Corner Crossroads Collaborative (FCCC) in Dorchester.

FCCC is a coalition of nine community organizations formed in 2019 as part of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Health Equity initiative. FCCC aims to use the collective sphere of influence of its constituent groups to make impactful changes in the field of health equity in the Dorchester area. The pillars of FCCC include healthcare, social services, youth development, labor and occupational health, economic development, civic participation, community organizing, and affordable housing.

“My commitment to community advocacy dates back further than I realized.”

Keyla began her involvement in community advocacy at a very young age. Her grandfather was an advocate in his Boston community who committed a lot of his time to supporting the Boston Elderly Center. Growing up, Keyla says, he would bring her along with him to community meetings. He has since passed but a bench sits in his memoriam at the BEC location in Dudley.

In speaking with and working alongside Keyla, her deep roots in the community are evident by the knowledge of and personal connection to the inequities that she is working to address.

Keyla knew that she wanted to continue in the footsteps of her family members. She found her passion working with families and children who had special medical needs as a child life specialist. Keyla says it was working with these families where she had her first glimpses of the systemic inequities that affect members of her community in Dorchester.

As a lifelong Dorchester resident, Keyla is fueled by the pursuit to help uplift her community and provide the people around her with better, more accessible resources.

“I have always been a Dorchester resident and I am committed to seeing an uplifting of Dorchester.”

Keyla (left) at FCCC’s 2021 Harvest Fest working with volunteers.

It wasn’t until she started working with Vital Village that she found her voice as a community member and began to get more involved in community advocacy. Vital Village is a Boston-based collaborative-network focused on children and family wellbeing. Keyla was drawn to them after having her son, who is now 4 years old. Vital Village emphasized initiatives that valued the perspectives, expertise, and live-experiences of community members in shaping the future of their own communities. Her work with Vital Village, she says, led her to where she sits now as the Director of FCCC in Dorchester.

“Maybe this is not where I could make the most powerful impact, but this is where I can make the most meaningful impact to me.”

Throughout our conversation Keyla emphasizes her commitment to the Dorchester area and supporting her own community. Her reciprocity to her community and to those who have come before her is at the center of her work.

“I do hope that at some point, there won’t be a need for lower level systematic change… [that] years from now, Dorchester will already have the resources it needs.”

She is hopeful of a future where organizations will be working towards making a more sustainable impact with their shared influence and connections. She believes that there must be larger, systematic change backed by institutions and governments to meet the needs of communities––

“A lot of the work that organizations that I work with are doing right now is based off of where the government or city is falling short.”

When asked about the most pressing issues facing the Dorchester, Keyla describes housing injustice, food insecurity, and workers rights. She voices concerns about the number of illegal evictions and the rising cost of rent as a tactic to push residents out and promote gentrification. BIPOC families who have lived in Fields Corner for generations are being displaced by newly implemented rent prices that local jobs cannot support.

Food injustice is a major issue.

“People [in Dorchester] do not have access to clean, fresh affordable food. I shouldn’t be able to find three fast food restaurants before I find a grocery store that sells vegetables.”

Keyla mentions that organizations like Daily Table and About Fresh are improving the landscape in the neighborhood, but feels there is “more backing needed from the city” to make change on a systemic level.

She stresses the importance for more equitable and humanizing social systems–community members should not have to “jump through hoops” and deal with immeasurable red tape to sign up for SNAP––facts of the process that only decrease the number of eligible citizens who will go through with the registration process. These all tie back into a long-standing need to create opportunities for civic engagement.

Keyla setting up FCCC’s Harvest fest with the help of her son, Kai.

Keyla believes one solution to many of the issues residents are facing is to establish multilingual resource hubs across the city.

“There has to be something where people know they can go to so [they are] not just scrambling all over the city emailing 30 different agencies with fuel access only to be told to go somewhere else.”

She believes that resource hubs would improve access to community members and reduce the burden on individuals navigating a disjointed system. In order to realize this vision, she says [we] should be holding the city accountable when it comes to funding low income, predominantly non-white areas the same way that white areas [of the city] are funded.”

Keyla (right) with Vital CxNs Community Organizing Manager, Ameina (left), and Project 2043 member, Born (middle) at one of our Covid vaccination and testing clinics.

With many aligning priorities and values, we at Vital CxNs have had many opportunities to partner with Keyla and FCCC across our initiatives, including our food access and vaccine equity work, as well as our Community Convos. Like us, Keyla is adamant about the importance of collaboration across organizations and residents to expand reach, avoid duplication of efforts, and strengthen impact, and is disappointed by the existing lack of collaboration.

“If we don’t have the connections within the community, we really don’t have anything, [otherwise] we’re all just walking around blindfolded. We can’t do this work without knowing who else is doing the work.”

Keyla is a force of hope and change in Dorchester. It is community advocates like Keyla and her grandfather that show the limitless potential of vital connections.

March 2022