Maine's Equality Community Center is moving one step closer to the dream originally conceived by the organization's founders.
This week, the organization purchased a building in Portland that will house several LGBTQ and allied organizations, including Equality Maine, Pride Portland!, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, PFLAG and MaineTransNet.
The Center's Vice President Matt Dubois says the goal is to create dedicated space to bolstering socializations and support for the the LGBTQ community.
"So many LGBTQ spaces are disappearing, and that's both a function of our own success and also unfortunately, recently, of the COVID pandemic," he says.
Dubois says the next step for the alliance will be launching a capital campaign this summer to renovate the building. If that goal is reached, the organization plans to reinvest in further expansion and work toward providing affordable housing for aging members of the LGBTQ community.
"Our goal is to expand the available space for all the important organizations in our community that are doing work. But also to expand programming and the availability of programing to the community, the elders in our community, the youth in our community, and bringing those different portions of the community together," he says.