well thank you all for coming here to the pride center of vermont on a kind of a cloudy and rainy day but lots and lots and i saw the sun trying to peek out so so welcome welcome to the pride center and thank you all for giving us annual pride event in september where in the early stages of planning we're at that point where we are wondering how many volunteers we need what kinds of activities we're going to have if there's anyone out there who wants to be a part of planning pride get a hold of us if you want to volunteer for pride make sure you communicate that to us we we have a job for you that day we're also involved in planning the run we're going to bring back our run again this year  so it's the stride to pride and we're looking at the routes and that sort of thing and so if you're a runner or runner want to be who is interested in maybe doing the fun run or the fun walk make sure first as director here now this year's this year's run is going to a little bit of a reinvention we've done the run before i think we've done it a couple of times before and then we kind of put it up on the bookshelf so we could you know there are so many runs in the area we wanted to make sure that our run stood out that it was a memorable experience for all of those individuals involved so this is this will be my first run with the pride center of vermont but it's not the first run for the pride center in general but what we're hoping to do is kind of grow this we're talking about making a four mile this year instead of a five k since there are so many five ks out there and we about the future of this particular run where will it go from here well it remain a form will it grow to two a half marathon that will just have to see i'm sorry i may have to get water and said all right you know i came up in march first part of march for my formal in person interview and it was a series interview so i was here for a couple of days and a lot of people asked me so what did you think when you when you got here you know burlington i come from a college town suburban town reminds me a lot of my hometown which is fayetteville arkansas favors a few more folks we have population of seventy five thousand with a student population of twenty seven thousand so it's a little bigger but burlington reminds me a whole lot of fayetteville and it has that same soul and that same vibe and just that same real miss and that's what really attracted me to burlington was you could you could feel the soul and the real illness of the people just walking down the street and so that was kind of my first impression and that's the impression that so far is stayed and you know just the more i get to know about the area of course the more beauty i see and the deeper that that so seems to be you know folks here really care they care about their neighbors their friends and they care about their city and i like part of my former life and when i worked at a service dog organization she was one of the dogs in that program and today she's retired she still likes to do the things that she knows how to do she knows how to pick up things or drop open doors that kind of stuff she likes doing that she's just a little slower she's a little older and you know she's at that age where she pulls muscles and strains ligaments and so now she's retired in just kind of enjoying life as a regular dog time well what is this is eighty six the rating and i graduated high school in eighty five so eighty six thirty nine those sort of my early coming out days and so when i flip through this i think back to to the  i was first coming out and it was it was a different world back then in so many ways but in other ways we still have the same fight on our hands and so it's with mixed emotion that i look through archives you see how far we've come and then sometimes we think we're still we're still marching against the same stuff and we shouldn't have to be marching against the same old stuff but you know we do that's the reality and we will carry on and keep fighting until until we  in full equality says and i can see just by talking to you that you are very sensible you must be coming in and talking to you and telling you all kinds of things that are very close to their heart and you are cesspools and you are able to help them to god all right i've been working in the nonprofit world since i was eighteen and i started out at a crisis intervention center answering a hotline and and ever since those days i am an individual who can hear a person's story and hear the details of their story hear whatever it is that they want to share without judgment and so people do see me as someone they can talk to i have a policy of accessibility i want i take it very seriously you know there are so many people out there who would love to be doing what i'm doing and i feel blessed to be chosen as a representative community and so i feel a responsibility to be accessible and i take that very seriously and so when when people want to convey concern share that we're we're just talking in the wind and to come here and to have somebody this is is very absolutely you know it's making a difference means you have to speak up sometimes you have to keep speaking until you do find someone who will listen and sometimes folks are listening then they just don't know how to convey it but it's important to not get discouraged and just to keep reaching out and to keep talking until you start to feel like you're moving your ideas and your thoughts and your concerns forward and you feel comfortable here to tell you this is base where you can you can feel at home well i hope so you know we take you community center is a home for so many people in our family and when you think that's one of the challenges we face as an l g b t q community cent our family is so diverse we have people of different life experiences different ages different belief systems you know you just were a little microcosm of of our country i guess you could say and so it is like it's  something that we have to ask ourselves every day are we providing a center both a facility and services and programs that meets the needs of our community and we want folks to know this is your home this is your community center and we want you to play a role in it and we want you to be very comfortable when you're here now where we're sitting in a huge space currently right this you know protein or vermont has a wide variety of programming we have the facility and have at our center in and of itself we have a library we have where you can check out books and videos we have a computer room we have meeting space for the variety of community organizations that meet here and then we have a safe space which is our program that provides advocacy and support and assistance to individuals who have experienced sexual violence domestic violence and hate violence we have a health and wellness program where we provide free hiv testing and do a variety of programs that are designed to help us live healthier lives we have a running program we have a smoking cessation program i don't think they call themselves p flag anymore but we have a support group for the friends and family and loved ones of individuals who are  a transgender and gender nonconforming community project they have planning meetings and they also have like trans town halls and and support groups that meets here course that's part of the center's programming we have a lot going on i mean we have our office hours but outside of those office hours there's a lot that happens here there's always seems like every night even though we're close we have something going on you know living positive group for individuals to reach out be positive we have a twelve step meeting for individuals who are dealing with addiction so there is just a lot and most of our information is online and then of course you know we have a variety of social programming that happens outside of the center we have a group of mates called momentum that meets every week that's for l g b t q individuals forty and over  we have a group that meets for individuals who are living with disabilities if you're looking for it we either have it or interested in starting it or would talk to you about starting hits so  check us out sometime we have a lot of programs that happen both here at the center and out in the community or working on some ideas to take our programming and services out across the state to reach our l g b t q family that you're asking a newbie but i can make disco make a statement about you know one of the things that that we have done in the past and will continue to do is to work in collaboration with the old to be t q organizations across year for the pride center we are talking about you know this is our twentieth anniversary we're talking about what the next twenty years will look at why we are talking about doing a community survey  find out you know kind of what are the demographics of our community here what are the issues our community deals with and what are the needs that they have and what are they what do they want from the pride center and we're also going to do a little bit of a physical refresh we're talking about you know cleaning the pride center up a little part of giving a little polish maybe repaint in and who knows what else we're going to do just given you know given the center a fresh look for the next twenty years so we do you can find us on facebook and on twitter and our website is pride center v t dot org make sure to check it out sign up for our newsletter and stay in touch with us and keep rest of what's going on