FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 20, 2022

Media Contact 
Name: Wendy Bury
Title: Executive Director
Phone: (860) 448-5135
Email address: W.Bury@CultureSECT.org
Cultural Coalition Announces
Outreach & Impact Coordinator
for Eastern Connecticut
 
Norwich, CT - The Cultural Coalition is pleased to announce Kia Baird as the Outreach & Impact Coordinator for the southeastern and northeastern CT regions. In this new part-time position, Ms. Baird will plan and execute outreach efforts to arts and cultural entities not currently being served by the Cultural Coalition. Kia will help expand, strengthen and deepen the Cultural Coalition’s community engagement and impact.

Kia will serve as a point of contact to identify arts & cultural organizations, artists, and creative networks in eastern Connecticut that are not currently being directly served by the Cultural Coalition, and connect with and support them, especially BIPOC creative community members. She will represent the Cultural Coalition's core values - connect, collaborate, communicate - and dedication to addressing diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.
Kia A. Baird is a Norwich, CT native with a life mission of connecting people with opportunities. 

Ms. Baird is Past President of the New London County Section of the National Council of Negro Women, an organization founded in 1935 by Mary Mcleod Bethune to work collectively for women’s rights and the rights of young people. Kia is a former Ambassador for the Eastern CT Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals and served the Chamber as a member of its Board of Trustees.  In 2013 Kia Baird received the Young Professionals Community Service Award. In 2015, she was honored with her peers as one the region’s 40 Under Forty and in the following years Kia was privileged to become one the SECT Professional Women of the Year and 100 Women of Color (CT, MA, RI). 

Kia is on the board of directors and past president of OutCT, a 501c3 organization that works to build a community through educational and social programming that promotes acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ community. Kia is also the Co-Chair of the Southeastern CT Re-entry Council, serving individuals that are returning to the community after incarceration. She is also on the Diversity Board for the Norwich Bulletin and has been featured several times as a guest columnist. 

Kia Baird is a classically trained soprano. She studied the business of music at the Historically Black College- Winston Salem State University (UNC) located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kia studied both sacred and classical music and concentrated in jazz under the tutelage of D’Walla Simmons Burke, Richard Heard and Dr. David Legette. Among other memorable performances, Kia was the soprano in the Opera Barefoot, narrated by the Late Dr. Maya Angelou and is currently the featured Soloist for RPM Voices of Rhode Island. Kia is a former Board of Directors member of the Norwich Arts Center, where she created Miss Lottie’s Café, A jazz- theater series, named for art and community activist, Lottie B Scott in historic Norwich, CT and is the Founder of Girls in Jazz. 

Kia’s dream to connect people with passion and creativity to opportunities that develop exceptional business acumen, drive economic development allows her to help strengthen the community as a whole. 
About the Cultural Coalition: 
The Cultural Coalition, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, mission is to improve the economy, vitality and quality of life in eastern Connecticut by supporting the arts, cultural and creative community.