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Kalamazoo LGBTs celebrate growth, collaborative spirit

by Jessica Carreras

LGBTA Fall Welcome Picnic

1-6 p.m. Sept. 11
Kalamazoo Gay/Lesbian Resource Center, 629 Pioneer, Kalamazoo
http://www.kglrc.org

Kalamazoo Gay/Lesbian Resource Center Executive Director Dave Garcia has been on vacation. And it was deserved, too, as the West Michigan LGBT community leader celebrated his one-year anniversary Sept. 1 – a year filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, over 250 new donors, a Pride festival that brought in over 5,000 visitors, the win of the city-wide non-discrimination ordinance and the expansion of the center's board of directors, programming, office space and staff.
The successes and growth of the West Michigan community will be celebrated Sept. 11 with the second annual LGBTA Fall Welcome Picnic, held at the building KGLRC shares with Community AIDS Resource and Education Services.
For the KGLRC, says Garcia, there's been continuous cause for celebration.
"I don't have much time to reflect on the past year, but I certainly am happy with the expansion of the organization," he says. "I think what makes me proudest is seeing the amount of community support. The picnic's coming up and I know it's going to be huge. Everyone's talking about it. People are calling left and right with their own ideas, and willing to serve on the committee to see that those things happen. The Pride celebration was amazing, and to see it continue to grow and expand was awesome.
"I've been tired, but excited."
The community support has been overwhelming, adds CARES Prevention Specialist Jan de la Torre, who is helping to organize this year's picnic. "We've been working together and we need to continue together," he explains. "I think this picnic is just going to highlight that and maintain a high level of engagement for the community – not just the gay community, but the community at large."
Being seen as an integral part of the community at large is a concern Kalamazoo's LGBT people are all too familiar with. From their ordinance battle last year to acceptance in West Michigan's large faith community and convincing local business owners to support LGBT equality, the constant struggle has been to prove the gay community's worth. Several committees under the umbrella of the KGLRC are tackling that in small bites, including the Public Policy Committee, the Business Bureau and the Faith Alliance.
The latter, says Garcia, is particularly important in West Michigan, where the faith community is often behind anti-gay efforts. But just as many congregations, he adds, are on their side. "It's always been one of my greatest frustrations that when you say 'gay,' people assume that all churches and religions are against us," Garcia insists. "That's just not the case. We have as many churches on our side as they do and many of those churches and denominations are represented on our Faith Alliance."
Equally important to working with the community at large, says de laTorre, is working together within the LGBT community – a skill of West Michigan gays exhibited in their upcoming picnic.
The event is a collaboration between CARES, the KGLRC and a slew of other groups: a CARES program (similar to MPowerment Detroit) called Project(!); the Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality; the Kalamazoo GLBT Professionals Network; the Western Michigan University Office of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Student Services; Phoenix Community Church and Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative. The event will feature resource tables, an open house for visitors to tour the center (including the new youth drop-in space), food, games and live performances by local singer-songwriters Casey Grooten and Dana Scott.
"One part of the picnic is all about welcoming the students, because we have such a large student population here in Kalamazoo, but also welcoming the season," de la Torre shares." It's one way for the gay community to just refresh and get together and celebrate LGBT lives and successes for the year."
And the successes still to come, says Garcia, who revealed plans in the works to continue the KGLRC's growth.
In the past year, on top of a successful campaign that raised $50,000, the resource center has received several grants, which will allow it to expand its services drastically. The Kalamazoo Community Foundation has provided $30,000 for the center to begin an LGBT youth mentoring program. The Gillmore Foundation – also Kalamazoo-based – granted another $30,000 to help with operational costs. And the Arcus Foundation awarded the KGLRC a two-year $180,000 grant, all of which has allowed Garcia to hire a part-time director of programming – an important job, considering that, too, is growing.
In addition to the annual Pride festival and Fall Picnic, the KGLRC will be hosting its first black-tie Pride Banquet in December, which will award local LGBT leaders for their work in the community. The upscale evening will also include the naming of the first benefactor of the LGBT Scholarship Fund, created in honor of late gay activist and Kalamazoo City Commissioner Terry Kuseske, who passed away Sept. 2.
The KGLRC's successes, Garcia and de la Torre agree, mirror the growth and strengthening of Kalamazoo's entire LGBT community. With an effective non-discrimination ordinance in place, the backing of city government and a fair share of religious, educational and community leaders and a collaborative spirit, there is nowhere to go but up.
"In Kalamazoo, we are a small community, but we are a strong community," de la Torre sums up. "We work with each other, we play off of each other's strengths, we enhance each other. If we didn't work this way, if we didn't have such a great collaborative spirit in town, I don't think any of the advances made by gay and lesbian people in Kalamazoo would be possible."

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