As a 16-year-old junior in high school, I can confidently say that I have so much more to learn. But Los Angeles LGBT Center’s many initiatives have quickly taught me the value and purpose of an accepting and loving community and that allowing yourself to feel loved and accepted gives you a larger capacity to love and accept others. I have a deep passion for LGBTQ+ equity, inclusion, and success and became a Center volunteer to support the community I hold so dear. By helping fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community, the Center has provided me with an outlet to…
Author: Greg Hernandez
Pre-pandemic, the community room of the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Triangle Square senior housing complex would typically be filled with residents sharing a meal, watching a movie, or playing a game. On a recent weekday morning, the only people inside the large room—now headquarters for Senior Pride Pantry—were volunteers Patrick Driscoll and Morgyn Utzman who were busy filling bags with groceries and other supplies that were to be delivered to senior clients. “Did you ever work in a grocery store?” Driscoll (pictured, above) asked Utzman. “I’m trying to pack bags like you would at a grocery store.” They are among…
I’m a straight, cisgender Latina and, prior to 2013, I had never met a transgender person. Now I spend my days in Health Services providing case management for pre-surgical trans patients. I make sure they have letters for mental health clearance, provide referrals for those seeking surgery, connect them with surgeons, help with insurance, and link them to resources for their name and gender marker changes. Working with transgender people has helped me to learn so much and to evolve and grow in a way that has made me a better human being. I wanted to work with this population…
By Greg Hernandez A delighted Lina Noel happened upon Liberation Coffee House on the northeast corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and McCadden Place completely by random—on the café’s grand opening day. “We were looking for coffee, thought this place looked great, and just walked in,” explained Noel, who moved to Los Angeles from New York just weeks ago. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s new retail café opened its doors on August 17 with little fanfare yet the first-day customers were enthusiastic about the food and the cause. “They told me this benefits the Center,…
I work at Toyota Motor North America, which is devoted to the communities in which it serves and supports, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center for quite some time. My company donated $100,000 to assist the Center’s vital work during COVID-19, including $25,000 to support the Center’s HIV and AIDS related services as part of this year’s AIDS/LifeCycle, which was held virtually due to COVID-19. At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of Toyota employees, including myself, were looking for some way to help people. I learned about the Center’s Hello Club in which volunteers call seniors to check…
By Greg Hernandez Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit with full force in mid-March, many of the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s senior clients immediately found themselves stuck at home without much contact with the outside world. They had become accustomed, during the previous 12 months, to being served a hot lunch by the Center’s Culinary Arts program and participating in other programs and activities at the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Senior Center on the Anita May Rosenstein Campus. Nowadays, they are worried about how to get groceries and essential supplies safely and, simultaneously, coping with unexpected isolation. To help the seniors…
I have volunteered in-person for various Los Angeles LGBT Center events prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but I am glad that I found a way to volunteer remotely during the crisis by making calls for the Hello Club. It means the world to me when a senior client I’ve called to check on tells me that I’ve made their day. I’ve talked to so many lovely people, and I’m glad that I am able to provide them with support and resources if they feel lonely or have a hard time getting essentials. Of course, many of the seniors I’ve talked…
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we in the Public Policy department have remained steadfast in our mission to protect our clients, our staff, and the Center so that we can all remain healthy and continue to provide critical services. This includes tracking all the governmental responses to COVID-19 at the local, state, and federal levels to see how these responses impact us. We dive deep into the analysis of every legislative move and executive order, and we are also closely tracking how dwindling tax revenue coffers at each level of government affects potential discontinuation of service provisions. This crisis has…
By Greg Hernandez One of the most powerful things about being a part of the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Still We Rise women’s poetry group is being together physically in one room to share each other’s work. But, health and safety concerns over the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic made such meetings impossible for this Senior Services program that began in 2017 and is funded with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Still, this group of dedicated women poets and their teacher stuck together over the spring months — virtually and emotionally — to create memorable poems that reflect…
I wanted to put my energies behind a cause that I believe in, and I love the work that the Los Angeles LGBT Center does to uplift the community it serves. Before the COVID-19 crisis began, I would fill-in sporadically as a volunteer whenever I had the time. But now I have the ability to volunteer on a regular basis and have found a place amongst the Senior Angels crew which helps facilitate the delivery of groceries to seniors in need. Because of the global pandemic, there were many days I felt pretty hopeless and saddened by the state of…