Build It and They Will Come

Now in its third year, the Desert Pride Center continues to grow.

By Sam Maisner

While most gay and lesbian community centers saw their genesis in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it took the Coachella Valley’s LGBT community decades of growth before the Desert Pride Center opened its doors in a small office in 2002. “The community just didn’t have the right gathering of people who wanted to pick up the ball,” says Co-Administrator Sharon Doty. “It took the right mix of people who were willing to come together, write a check, and put their money on the table to get it started. We had to rent some space, and they got in there and worked really hard—they worked on by-laws and everything it takes and they got the 501c3 non profit paperwork done. I don’t know why it took them so long to come together, but we’re just thankful they did.”

Just as each LGBT center is different, Palm Springs’ fits the needs of its residents. “This center is a little unique from other centers. We don’t have a youth component and we don’t have a senior center. Most other centers are divided up more, but this is just the gay and lesbian adult center. There is Gay Associated Youth in Palm Springs, and we work with them. Maybe it’s because we rent the facility. If we owned the facility, there might be a chance to bring everyone together under one roof.”

Doty says much of the credit for the Center’s growth goes to offering a wide variety of programs, as well as listening to the needs of the community. “We don’t so much plan the programs, the programs come to us. People submit ideas to the program committee, and we review them, and as long as they’re within the bounds of the ethics of the Center, then we allow them to offer the program,” she says. “We have not truly planned things, we know we want to continue with our foreign language program because it’s been very successful, but the presenters come to us. If we have a request from members to have a different type of program, like the caregivers group we recently started, then we do that, but mostly people come to us. We have 12-step programs that meet here, we’re offering Spanish, sign language, and Tai Chi. We’ve also expanded into health offerings. For the last year, we’ve been doing HIV testing twice a month; we do STD testing every week on Wednesday and blood pressure screening. Just recently we’ve incorporated with Desert Women for Equality, and we’re doing free mammogram testing every other month. So, we’ve taken on a nice health component as well, and we’ve grown by gender.”

With so many retirees living in the desert, one of the Center’s most popular programs is their travel club. “We do day trips—we’ve done bus trips to Sedona, Arizona. We’ve also done two cruises, one with 200 people to Mexico, and one to Alaska with 65 people. We’re planning an upcoming trip to Hawaii for the first part of 2007,” Doty says. “We’re trying to reach out to our community in any way we can to recognize needs. People like to travel in gay groups, but when you look at the higher-end gay trips that are available, not everyone can afford those. We don’t take over the whole ship—we’re anticipating about 300 for the Hawaii trip.”

The trips also help generate revenue for the Center, which relies entirely on fund-raisers and donations. “We don’t receive any help from agencies—not from state, federal, or city—we survive from our fund raising, membership, and benefactors,” says Doty. “We’re going to have a black tie Monte Carlo night fund-raiser at the Mission Hills Country Club on Sept. 15, and that’s our big fund-raiser; we also have a Chandelier performance at Heaven on July 29.”

As for the future, Doty and the Center’s board are hopeful they’ll take the next step to building ownership in the near future. “We’ve grown because of good offerings of programs, opening for all groups that want to be here,” she says. “We’re working on our building fund—that’s a huge thing for us. We would hope that at the end of three years that we would have been able to get ourselves started toward our own building. That’s really our dream—to have our own building.”

The Desert Pride Center is located at 611 S. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs. For more information, call (760) 327-2313, or go to www.desertpridecenter.org.

The Desert Moon Rises

David Weiner, owner of The Desert Moon Resort, celebrated the grand re-opening of the hotel with an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, June 29. The resort offers 24 comfortable and luxurious rooms for the gay and lesbian traveler. The Desert Moon Hotel is located at 2150 N. Palm Canyon Dr. For more information, call (760) 325-8038, or go to www.desertmoonresort.com.