By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
Octavia Fellin Public Library Director Tammi Moe arrived in Gallup in April 2017 with a singular mission: building an archive to benefit the OFPL.
She told her husband the job was slated for two years, but fell in love with the community — and nearly a decade later, she’s still going strong.
“It is a sacrifice I make because I know what I’m doing truly makes a difference to the people who live here,” she said in front of the Gallup City Council during their May 27 meeting. “I have seen tragic things happen here, but I’ve also experienced so many beautiful things.”
Moe was recently accepted into the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network with the Center for Creative Leadership Fellowship. This 18-month program sharpens leadership self-mastery, deepens the understanding of racial equity and systemic structures, and provides tools for authentic community engagement.
The program looks to tackle forms of systematic racism and other forms of oppression.
Moe said that as part of the cohort, she plans to continue to serve the Gallup community by tackling its poverty level and providing under-privileged children with opportunities and experiences they may not have otherwise experienced.
As a part of the New Mexico cohort, Moe said she hopes she and the other participants can develop a network with the state where they can work with each other to mobilize to uplift families in the community.
Moe said she hopes those connections help her in her mission to build a new regional library for the Gallup area.
“I think what’s important, especially in this current climate, is that you can’t heal systems without first honoring truth and my work here preserves indigenous stories and it uses them as a foundation of inclusion into the story and the narrative of what it means to be American,” she said. “I think it’s really important now to focus energy and resources to preserve that narrative and that history.”
To learn more about the fellowship, visit https://wkkfcln.org.
