After years of conducting meetings and events in rented and donated spaces, The Jersey Shore LGBTI Community Center, or QSpot, has found a space of its own in the old Neptune High School Building, now the Jersey Shore Arts Center.
“This is our first home, said Maryann Buchanan, QSpot board chair. “We’ve been around since 2005. It’s about time we got our own permanent space, and now we’ve found this wonderful home at the Jersey Shore Arts Center.”
Over the years, they’ve rented or were donated space in local merchants’ shops and bars, in the Central Jersey Community Health Center, Trinity Church and other places nearby, she said.
They set up shop among the artists studios on the basement level in the Center four months ago. It’s a smaller office and living room-type space, complete with a television, couch and reclining chairs [shown above]. A larger community room is located just down the hall and around a slight bend where they hold larger events. A kitchen is situated just off the community room. The QSpot is on a year-to-year lease with the option to renew and Buchanan said they will be renewing again come September 2014.
The original board of directors were gay Asbury Park homeowners, Buchanan said. After several Asbury Park Homeowners Association meetings, those in attendance realized over 50 percent of them were gay.
“It was a critical mass,” said Buchanan. Thus, the QSpot was born. Their vision being to establish an organization that provided social and informative services for the gay Asbury Park community. It is a community-centered, all-volunteer grassroots organization.
“The whole object of the Qspot was to create a community space and elevate the gay population’s pursuit of happiness and good health,” she said. “That is our mission, to support them and to provide safety and a social community where they can thrive and empower themselves.”
By 2007 the original board of directors started to leave and were replaced by folks with a broader agenda, according to Buchanan. Their four areas of focus are youth, family, aging and health.
A main focus of the QSpot is at-risk LGBT youth who are either dropouts, homeless, being bullied at school or who may be having trouble at home and coming out to their parents’ about their sexuality or gender of choice, said Buchanan.
“It’s a safe place,” she said. “We give referrals … find overnight stays – to keep them in school and to keep the dropouts safe from gangs and crime if they don’t have their family to support them. Because once you are homeless and taking to the streets you look for anyone who can give you shelter and courage.”
They also try to promote foster care for LGBT youths through DYFS workshops, Buchanan said.
“We try to push that,” said Buchanan. “To encourage [individuals around the state] to foster LGBT children.”
In addition, social and educational workshops and social events for adults include the “Weigh Lez” group for lesbian women who are trying to lose weight, art workshops, a club for senior citizens called GLOW [Gay, Lesbian, Older and Wiser], cancer workshops, programs and resource referrals for individuals living with HIV/AIDS, medicare workshops, and a lesbian womens’ group called “Hot Topics,” where current events are discussed.
They also hold a non-alcoholic coffee house where folk singers and poets perform, “for LGBT who don’t want to socialize in bars,” she said.
The next event the QSpot is hosting will be a LGBT Youth & Family Holiday Care Basket Party this Saturday, Dec. 21 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The QSpot is open Mon.-Fri. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., evenings and weekends by appointment, and during publicized planned events.
The Jersey Shore Arts Center is located at 66 Main Street in Ocean Grove. For more information, call 732-455-3373 or visit the QSpot’s webpage, www.jsqspot.org. The QSpot serves both Monmouth and Ocean counties
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