An open letter to the Greater Hampton Roads Community from the Steering Committee of the Hampton Roads OUTreach Center (HROC)
Note: This is a reposting of the open letter originally posted to the website in 2009.
Since we just celebrated the first birthday of our Hampton Roads OUTReach Center (HROC), we decided to take the opportunity and reflect on our first twelve months.
THANK YOU! For everything any of you have done to support HROC, accept our most humble thanks. Whether you filled out a survey, attended a fundraiser, directed others to our website, helped build a drag closet, wore a green wig for our freak show, offered a kind word to one of our fabulous helpers, volunteered for every event or only one…we THANK YOU. You are us. We are one.
HROC represents many things and it's reasonable to assume we'll change as time passes. Core to us, though, is our sense of community—the community we have and the community we can achieve. Toward that core goal, here are a few of the more remarkable things we've accomplished:
1. HROC has set a high standard for empowerment and leadership development. Many of our leaders are emerging for the first time. HROC challenges individuals while making it a point to nurture, encourage, and hold leaders responsible while also making sure they get credit for the terrific volunteer work they do.
2. HROC has developed one of the strongest volunteer bases in our community. Monthly meetings are attended by as many as 40 people and monthly steering committee meetings often have 100% attendance/participation. We have gay, bi, trans, lesbian, questioning, and allies….we have young and old (well, older!)…we have all kinds of races and mixes.
3. HROC is addressing issues impacting our community. We are currently providing a series of two (2) programs per month. One series focuses on queer history (we've had interactive lectures/discussion s on the Stonewall Rebellion, Harvey Milk, Matthew Sheppard, the men with the pink triangles, etc). One series focuses on contemporary issues impacting queers such as foster parenting, money management, queer travel, etc.
4. HROC is primary convener of other queer groups which provide services to our community. Our effort has been to make sure we are all working together and getting the largest impact possible for the investment all of us are making. In February, 2009 we invited all the queer and AIDS groups we know in Tidewater to gather for a facilitated discussion about our goals and areas in which we can help each other (more than 20 people attended that meeti ng representing at least 10 groups.) In March, 2009 we'll convene ROSMY, TACT, Lavender Light, and HROC to plan for queer youth services into the next year and beyond.
5. HROC is the best on-line "where to be" scheduler around. Check out our website (www.thehroc. org) We are working to become a clearinghouse for all open queer events in Hampton Roads as while also offering referrals to services specifically targeted to our community. Referral and information is one of the services we think essential to our community.
6. HROC is party central! Were you at the New Belmont restaurant watching when the Democrats swept the national elections? HROC was! Did you see the Super Bowl and play "commercials" bingo with the crowd at Hershee Bar? HROC did! Did you sit in 100 degree weather with 100 of your best queer friends for the picnic in Hampton ? That was all HROC! Did you try out queer speed dating at Skips? HROC sure did. Did you trip the light fantastic at one of Mike `n Mark's Granby Street Theater tea dances? HROC did. And how about those amazing Oceanview pier parties? Yup, HROC was there! Looking for a monthly potluck event so you can meet new and exciting people? Check out the HROC schedule (www.thehroc. org) and bring along that secret receipe grandma gave you for string bean casserole.
HROC, thanks to you and volunteers/supporte rs like you, has been a stunning success! We are regularly congratulated on our success by groups like Equality Virginia and are often sought out to help provide volunteers and/or leadership for events happening in the area.
In early Fall, 2008 the HROC steering committee proposed instituting a capital campaign to raise a substantial amount of money over the coming year so that we could move forward with plans to open a store-front HROC on the Peninsula side of the tunnel and a larger facility in Southside. The membership unanimously voted to proceed in that direction. Collectively, we understand the importance of having our own queer space and believed at the time that we had the base support we needed to begin an all out effort to raise $100,000.
Then came the collapse of the American economy.
As news of non-profit organizations suddenly struggling to keep their doors open while laying off employees and downsizing offices, we re-evaluated our goal to proceed immediately to the creation of two locations serving as one HROC facility. We talked with our membership and received general consensus for waiting until more favorable times to try to raise money for buildings. Since that decision, several of our volunteers have been laid off from their full time, paid positions and other area community groups who draw from the same donor base we'd be drawing from are struggling to stay afloat.
In the final analysis, we believe HROC is providing terrific service to the community (as cited above) as we are and that a vast fundraising effort on our part right now would not only be largely unsuccessful but, most importantly, that it would do harm to other important existing queer and AIDS organizations which serve our community well!
That doesn't mean that HROC is sidelined. Quite the opposite.
We're running HROC the way queers before us have run organizations for years—we're relying on our good nature, our queer spirit, our drive to create safe community where each of us can grow while being accepted as we are, and our desire to make the world a better place for those coming up behind us.
Here's where we are now and where we anticipate going in the coming months:
1. We have completed the extensive paperwork necessary, collected together the fee, and filed for 501 (c) 3 tax exempt status with the IRS. We can work with that designation effective now. That allows the volunteer sub-committee we have looking at grants to begin applying for those grants which the steering committee believes we can manage effectively and serves the broader mission of HROC.
2. We will continue our small fundraising activities (raffles at queer gatherings, shared door donations from Mike `n Mark parties, pier party fundraisers, and any special events our fundraising team comes up with around Pride, Super Bowls, elections, movie premiers, etc). We started with no money a year ago. All our bills are paid and we have more than a thousand dollars in the bank. We're not rich,=2 0but we don't need to be. Right now we need to be able to fund the work we're doing and we are doing just that.
3. We're getting ready to launch a substantial effort (along with other queer groups) to provide new services to queer youth in Tidewater. We anticipate this effort to be volunteer intensive. We will work with other organizations who will train volunteer group facilitators from HROC to preside over a series of groups we expect to form on both sides of the water.
4. We anticipate exploring the creation of a mentorship program which pairs more experienced queers with less experienced ones. (While this might include younger with older folks, it might well go the other way since a 40 year old coming out has specific challenges too!)
5. We plan to expand our programs. While we are probably on target planning two a month, we anticipate the scope changing as time goes on.
6. We plan to continue recruiting new volunteers to our ranks. We need to continually and continuously foster new leadership while fostering a greater since of community. More of us need to know one another.
7. We expect to continue working with the other wonderful queer groups in our community like MCC, HRBR, the Norfolk Men's Chorus, Rainbow Bridge Connection , Pride, and so many others) to improve the quality of life for all of us.
HROC still plans to have physical space on both sides of the tunnel which is devoted to our community! We want our Center to have an executive director and a staff which will work selflessly to improve the lives of members of our community…regardless of age, gender identity, race, or any other things which divide the greater population. We want our center to be high-functioning and to be on sound financial footing. We want our volunteer base to be large, loving, independent, and focused.
We want a lot; we don't think anything we want is impossible for us to achieve.
We must and we are moving deliberately. We're paying attention to what we're doing and we're making sure we learn as we grow.
We are one year old. That's it. We are aware of the fact that our community is hungry for a Center as a physical place. We want that too. We believe that we have and are making tremendous forward strives for our queer20community doing what we're doing AND we believe we are doing and have done A LOT!!!
For the here and now, though, we need to continue growing programs, recruiting a volunteer base, getting professional training in leadership and fundraising, learning more about how to love and appreciate each other, continuing to have marvelous FUNraising events to pay for costs associated with web enhancements, training programs, and the things we do to be visible in Hampton Roads.
If we as Americans survive this economy, HROC will be back on track raising the money to actualize our dream of a physical facility on both sides of the water. For now, it's important that you support HROC with your time, energy and devotions (and a dollar or two here and there would be nice) but it's most important that you donate money to national organizations like the Human Rights Campaign or Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund or locally to Equality Virginia or one of our local AIDS service organizations. Those groups ar e vital to our movement and to our people and this economy leaves them under-resourced. At HROC, for the time being, we're doing the good work we do with the resources any one of us is able to bring to the table. Yes. We want more and ultimately we'll have it but there's much work we can do without having a physical building right now…we are doing that work!
Again, THANK YOU.
Please come join us; we'd love to have you!
