Kirk Wesley, Senior Community Organizer and Outreach Coordinator, [email protected], 860-610-6040 x3513

Kirk A. Wesley is a community organizer and strategic advisor with over a dozen years of experience of building and supporting grassroots organizations and political entities who center their work around social and racial justice. After being inspired by Barack Obama’s first Presidential run in 2008, Kirk has grown from an “at-risk youth” to a seasoned community organizer and advocate able to navigate the nuanced intersections of diverse groups of people and progressive coalitions.

Kirk started his organizing career as a volunteer Field Organizer on Congressman Jim Himes’ first re-election campaign in 2010, and has since gone on to lead and advise political campaigns in multiple states across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. As a campaign strategist and advisor, Kirk has provided guidance to the winning campaigns of the current Mayor of Atlantic City, the former Baltimore City State’s Attorney, and played a integral role in the 2018 election of Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont by overseeing the campaign’s statewide field and outreach program that led to historic turnout across Connecticut's cities.

Kirk joins the OCA team after spending the previous three and a half years as an Organizing Consultant with Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut (CONECT), a collective of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and civic organizations from New Haven and Fairfield Counties. During his time with CONECT, Kirk led or played key organizing roles on issue based campaigns that culminated in the passage of numerous groundbreaking statewide legislation that include The Clean Slate Act of 2021, the Police Accountability Act of 2020, and the mandating of the collection of Race, Ethnicity, and Language data by health care providers in Connecticut. On a local level, Kirk organized parents and students of the Muslim Community in the Greater Bridgeport area to successfully advocate for Eid al Fitr to be added to the school district calendars of Bridgeport and Fairfield in 2022.

Before joining OCA as a staff member, Kirk was a member of the Board of Directors for over two years where he worked closely with other Board Members and Executive Director, Erin Boggs, to help OCA fulfill its mission and achieve its goals. He is a founding Board Member of BLaC (Building Leaders across Communities) Strategies, INC. a 501(c)3 non-profit that specializes in providing diverse communities with leadership development training and strategies through the lens of racial equity and gender justice. In his spare time, Kirk is an avid reader and writer and is the author of the book Youthful Offender, a memoir about his coming of age as a young adult in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Kirk is an active volunteer at his local church and is the founder of DADS: Doing Active Dad Stuff, a fathers group that encourages paternal involvement and support. Kirk is the proud father of two and resides in Fairfield County, Connecticut with his wife, Erika Kimberly.