Teddie Kelly is a longtime political organizer, educator and writer. For nearly a decade she has been an internationally-recognized leader in the struggle against war, incarceration and displacement.

Teddie started her professional career teaching Spanish in New York City and English in Madrid, Spain. Working with people who had lost their houses and their homelands made building land-based community power her priority. She identified common struggles at protest encampments across the U.S. and inside refugee camps in Damascus, Syria and Tijuana, Mexico. Now her classrooms are in churches, community centers, prisons and public parks. Teddie has tried to share what she’s learned in all these places as a magazine writer and newspaper reporter as well.

In late 2024, she became the Community Organizing Director at Quail Springs. In this role she hopes to strengthen ties between working class Cuyamans and Quail Springs and demonstrate how resource management and the maintenance of physical infrastructure in the Valley is an indispensable method of community care.

Teddie graduated from New York University with a B.S. in Foreign Language Education and a B.A. in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She is a transgender lesbian and a fierce partisan of the working class. Philadelphia is her hometown.