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AfroKC LEGACY AWARDS:
The AfroKC Legacy Awards honor and celebrate individuals and organizations within the Kansas City community who make a meaningful difference, particularly in promoting and preserving African, African American and Afro-diasporic culture. These awards shine a light on the often-unrecognized efforts of community leaders, artists, educators, and advocates whose work uplifts cultural identity, fosters unity, and drives positive change. By acknowledging these contributions, the AfroKC Legacy Awards not only validate the importance of cultural heritage and grassroots impact but also inspire future generations to continue building strong, vibrant, and inclusive communities.
Amy Coffman
Welcoming KC, Consultant
My Story
Amy Coffman's passion for equality, diversity, and belonging drove her into a career in advocacy and change-oriented work. She served as chief of staff to the Alaska House Minority, recruited union members, promoted and advocated for organizations and causes, supervised political campaigns for candidates and ballot propositions. Serving as a Special Assistant to Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz in 2015, Amy oversaw the development of the Welcoming Anchorage Plan to improve community inclusiveness and accessibility.
By means of her participation with Welcoming Anchorage, Amy took the responsibility of developing, writing, and implementing the language access policy and program for the Anchorage municipal government. This set off a passion to help businesses see the need of providing public language services. In 2018, Amy was given the YWCA Alaska "Women of Achievement" award for her efforts for language access in Anchorage.
She participated in local projects with the Welcoming KC Initiative to create the Welcoming KC Plan when she returned to Kansas City in 2019. She quickly took on the role of co-chair for the initiative and recently started paid consultancy work to help Kansas City, Missouri earn Certified Welcoming status via the national organization, Welcoming America.
Amy volunteered for Literacy KC and set up a Language Access Program. This program assessed the current language offerings to English language learners from first contact through enrollment and during their involvement. Using statistical data and readily available resources, Amy created a written strategy for Literacy KC to enable access to language services via material translation and interpretation services for initial contact as well as for additional help with job, housing, and public programs. Working with refugee resettlement organizations, other non-profits, and companies ready to hire individuals with somewhat poor English skills, her language access works are growing.
In response to the great demand for improved services for Limited English Proficient people, Amy founded "Lighting Up Language" in 2022 helping government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and businesses in creating and running language access initiatives. Amy is passionate about helping agencies improve their services to communities by means of inclusive and thorough language access programs.
Since the age of thirteen, when her family welcomed their first of three AFS foreign exchange students, Amy has been captivated by languages and cultures and underwent an exchange year in Norway. After earning her BA in Linguistics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1997, she had the unique chance to work at the Alaska Native Language Center on the Hän language transcription and Koyukon dictionary creation. She also worked as a Russian interpreter for Fairbanks Northstar Borough School District.