Ellen Ryan

Over a span of thirty years, Ellen Ryan has worked as a community organizer in New England, the upper midwest, and southern United States.

She began organizing in 1973 as a volunteer for the United Farmworkers Union grape and lettuce boycott, and later worked for the New England Training Center for Community Organizers, Grassroots Leadership, an organizing resource center in the South, and the Family Farm Organizing Resource Center and Regeneration Partnership in St. Paul, MN.

She served as lead organizer for Virginia Organizing Project for six years, and now lives in Augusta, ME.  Ellen has written and co-written articles about community organizing that appeared in Utne Reader, Social Policy, Organizing, and the anthology Fighting Back in Applalchia: Traditions of Resitance and Change.

A recent article, Lessons in Rural Organizing, appears in Lessons from the Field: Organizing in Rural Communities, American Institute for Social Justice, 2008.