An Evening of Dancing, Camaraderie and Hope for the Future

More than 1,500 gay men and lesbians united in the spirit of sharing, caring and valuing their community Saturday night as they celebrated at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center’s 26th anniversary ball and raised $400,000.

In black-tie duds they dined, danced and honored the queen of alternative comedy, Tracey Ullman, the Advocate and Wells Fargo for championing gay and lesbian equality.

But, more important, guests applauded the announcement that a new center--they say the first of its kind in the country, a single site serving as a hub for cultural, artistic and social activity--will open in Los Angeles in June.

“The new Community Education Center is the realization of a 26-year-old dream of creating an environment to showcase our community,” LuAnn Boylan, the center’s building project chairwoman, told the crowd gathered in the Los Angeles Ballroom at the Century Plaza Hotel & Tower.

Throughout the evening--while dining, mingling and standing in line at the open bar--word of the new center became the hot topic.

Located at 1100 N. McCadden Place, the former studio will be home to cyber, career and computer centers and a print training shop. Other offerings will include a space for exhibits, a California Arts Council artists-in-residence program, a reading room, a gay pride gift shop and 16 offices for nonprofit groups. A cafe and courtyard plaza for social events also are included in the plans that have been in the works since 1994.

The center--to be named in honor of Edward S. Gould, a former co-chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Center board of directors and philanthropist who died last year--will also house 15 community conference rooms for group meetings and an auditorium / theater with seating for 200 for town hall gatherings, lectures, performances and movie screenings.

“Being the first has never been a problem for the Gay and Lesbian Center,” said Eric Shore, co-chairman for the center’s $15-million campaign, which includes $5 million in capital for building renovations at the 33,000-square-foot facility and $10 million for an endowment fund that will provide at least $500,000 yearly.

Half of that amount has already been secured in commitments, he told the crowd. “We thank those of you who will rise to the occasion” with cash, equity gifts and pledges in order to meet the fund’s goal.

In an earlier interview, Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said the new center was born out of necessity.

“We had to get new space or turn clients away,” she said of the existing center at the John McDonald / Rob Wright Building on North Schrader Boulevard. That center, which houses social services, health, educational and advocacy programs, was purchased in 1991, operates on an $18-million budget and takes more than 14,000 client visits monthly.

Many of the nonclinical programs will be moved to the new center, giving the McDonald / Wright Building much-needed room to handle acute health care needs.

Jean said the Community Education Center will be a place “that will build our community’s health, wellness and self-esteem in a proactive way. Our services are currently designed to treat the wounds of living in a homophobic society.”

The programs and services offered by the new center will be “about prevention in the largest sense of the word so fewer people will need the services” offered at the McDonald / Wright site.

Jean is equally proud of the endowment program, the largest known fund of its kind in the nation.

“One of the things about the gay and lesbian community in Los Angeles is that we have a fabulous record of supporting our community financially. We’ve been dreaming of a center like this for a long time,” she said.

So have others like COOL, the Coalition of Older Lesbians, an organization that is operated out of a member’s home and uses a post office box address. The group is interested in leasing office space.

“It would be nice to have a telephone line, a regular meeting space, a mailing address and be in a place surrounded by other groups,” said coordinator Carol Waymire.

“The new center would be like a home for us and provide a sense of community, and that is really important.”

Morgan Rumpf, executive director of Outfest, the annual gay and lesbian film festival in Los Angeles, applauded the leadership behind the new center for recognizing that there are integral components to gay and lesbian life beyond health care, particularly in the arts.

“Our community’s health and mental health services are taken care of, so now the next level of care is about the bigger picture, about bringing the community together culturally and artistically and asking, ‘What does it mean to be gay and lesbian?’ ”

He hopes next year’s 10-day film fest will include an additional venue at the new center’s theater. And he’s eager to organize monthly screenings that would provide a social setting afterward for moviegoers other than the nightclub or bar scene.

Jean and others at the Saturday gala couldn’t have agreed more.

“What we have lacked in Los Angeles for some time is a place where anybody could come and gather for important community events, conferences, movies and meet with other people in one central place,” she said.

Sure, the new center will be nonclinical, she added. But don’t think that it also will only be a place to party.

“We want to get to the root cause of what plagues our community and this Community Education Center will be part of that effort.”