The San Diego LGBT Community Center held a gala for its 50th anniversary at Hilton San Diego Bayfront on Saturday, Oct. 14 with 1000 guests in attendance who raised over $700,000 for one of the oldest and largest LGBT centers in the nation.
Many celebrated the golden anniversary with Midas-touched outfits as they gathered to rejoice, mourn and renew their commitment to fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Key local LGBTQ+ figures and allies were at the event, including former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders with his daughter and her wife and children as well as current Mayor Todd Gloria.
While Center founders who died of AIDS were mourned and national efforts to pass anti-LGBTQ+ legislation were raged against, the crowd took time to celebrate the hard-won victories of the community—with help from entertainers Sue Palmer and the Motel Swing Orchestra, a drag show led by Paris Sukomi Max, and DJ Bruce Trites.
“We fought like hell to survive and thrive, to make it here tonight to celebrate 50 extraordinary years of this beautiful community,” said the Center’s CEO Cara Dessert during her keynote address. “It is now our collective responsibility… to ensure that our community’s hopes and dreams are not threatened by shifting political climates and by those who see us as less than human.”
The nonprofit has three prongs: Advocacy, direct services and a physical community space for LGBTQ+ people. The in-house services at the Center are diverse, including mental health services, sexual health services, housing help and more. In total, the Center has 80,000 service visits per year.
History
The Center began after local gay activists visited LA to see the nation’s first LGBT center. They decided to organize a similar local effort. What began as a resource phone line is now a sprawling nonprofit with nine properties and a $13 million budget and staff of 115 people.
“We started off as an answering machine in a utility closet in Golden Hill by Jess Jessop and it served as a resource line for LGBT folks,” said Ian Johnson, Senior Director of Development. “So to see the growth that we’ve had in those 50 years specifically and responding to the needs of our community, that’s a really special thing.”
In addition to being one of the oldest LGBT centers, the Center also pioneered a Latino services program 19 years ago.
“What attracted me to come here was their commitment to work on immigration, unlike a lot of other other centers across the nation,” said Deputy CEO Kim Fountain, who has had a 30-year career in LGBTQ+ centers spanning Vermont, New York and Chicago before joining the Center’s team last year.
San Diego’s Center has embraced being a border city. When Border Patrol dumped immigrants at bus stops recently, the Center was one of the organizations that mobilized to connect them with services.
With the 2024 election on the horizon, the Center is working on state and national initiatives, including get out the vote and other educational efforts.
“We’re building that community power to make sure that as 2024 approaches, we’re ready for anything that happens,” Fountain said.
A major area of growth in recent years has been in youth services. Johnson shared his own story of arriving in San Diego at 19, homeless, in the 1990s when the Center was a much smaller organization.
“The Center was still growing and didn’t have the robust youth and housing programs we have today. It was only a dream for my friends and I who didn’t have a place to call home. I often think back and think, what if? What if the Sunburst Youth Housing Project, what if the Hillcrest Youth Center, or South Bay Youth Center, or the Family Reunification Program existed?” he asked in his address to the audience. “I can tell you that a lot of those friends would probably still be alive today.”
Those youth services are more critical as people are coming out younger than ever, and still face issues like being kicked out of family homes and discrimination at schools.
Future goals
Looking to the future, the board and staff are focused on being ready to meet the needs of the growing LGBTQ+ senior community.
“The seniors are the generation that fought. The seniors are the generation that walked through the worst coals of despair and discrimination,” said board co-chair Sue Reynolds.
Currently the Center operates an affordable housing building in North Park for LGBTQ+ seniors. With the housing and homelessness crises in the region affecting LGBTQ+ seniors, who are disproportionately poorer and less likely to have a spouse or family member to support them, those efforts need to scale up.
“We know that our chosen family are critical to helping each other and if we can’t help each other, who the heck can?” said Reynolds, who worked with former Center CEO Dr. Delores Jacobs for 10 years to build the affirming, affordable senior housing project in North Park.
Lifetime Achievement: Dr. Jacobs
Dr. Jacobs received a lifetime achievement award at the gala for her pioneering leadership as CEO.
“She took the reins when the Center was at a crossroads, struggling to survive. Under her visionary leadership, the Center has greatly expanded the scope of its programs, became financially stable, grew its volunteer base and became a respected partner in the broader social justice community,” said Calif. Senator Toni Atkins.
While presenting the award, Atkins commended Jacobs for leading by empowering others and practicing intersectionality before it was a buzzword.
“The Center’s extraordinary expansion was only possible because of your visionary leadership,” said current CEO Dessert. “Part of your continuing legacy is how deeply you invest in other leaders. I would not be here today if you hadn’t inspired me to envision and fight for the world we deserve and taught me how to make big dreams into real programs.”
Dessert recently reached her fifth year as CEO of the Center. Dr. Jacobs is still the Center’s longest-serving CEO ever with 17 years at the helm of the nonprofit before her retirement.
To learn more about the Center and its programs, visit thecentersd.org.
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