 Do you mind if I... I don't want to... You climb all over that you're fine. I've just said... We can shampoo it. You go for it. You do whatever you need to do. People are always... Put your feet up there, put your shoes up there. Well, thank you all for coming here to the Pride Center of Vermont on a kind of a cloudy and rainy day, but lots of light and I saw the sun trying to peek out. So welcome to the Pride Center and thank you all for giving us this time to talk to you about what it is that we do here. And what's on your mind today? What is on my mind today? Everything. The Pride Center is... We're gearing up for our annual Pride event in September. We're in the early stages of planning. We're at that point where we're wondering how many volunteers we need and 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 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 a runner want to be who is interested in maybe doing the fun run or the fun walk, make sure you put September 9th on your calendar for the run and September 10th as the date that we will all come together as one community and celebrate Pride. That's great. And is this going to be your first run as a director here? Now this year's run is going to be 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 retool it. You know, there's 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 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 5K, since there are so many 5Ks out there. And we're talking about the future of this particular run. Where will it go from here? Will it remain a four-mile? Will it grow to a half-marathon? We'll just have to see. I'm sorry. I may have to get water. Is that all right? You know, I came up in March, first part of March for my formal in-person interview. It was a multi-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 got here? You know, Burlington, I come from a college town. So Burlington reminds me a lot of my hometown, which is Fayetteville, Arkansas. Fayetteville's a few more folks. We have a population of 75,000, with a student population of 27,000. 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 realness. And that's what really attracted me to Burlington, was you could feel the soul and the realness 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 has stayed. And, you know, just the more I get to know about the area, the more beauty I see and the deeper that soul 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 that a whole lot. Tell us, who is your companion here? Okay, this little, as they say, let sleeping dogs lie. This little sleeping dog is Jenny. Jenny's a seven-year-old lab. Jenny's a retired service dog. She's part of my former life. 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 you 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 and just kind of enjoying life as a regular dog. So besides you, you have a volume of one of the earliest papers here in Berlin. Yeah, the Out in the Mountains. You know, of course, the volume that I grabbed happened to cover the time, well, what is this? This is 86 through 89. I graduated high school in 85. So 86 through 89, that's sort of my early coming out days. And so when I flip through this, I think back to the time when I was first coming out. And 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 you think 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 we win full equality. Susan, I can see just by talking to you that you are very accessible. You must have people coming in and talking to you and telling you all kinds of things that are very close to their heart. And you are accessible. So you are able to help them and to guide them. I've been working in the nonprofit world since I was 18 and I started out at a crisis intervention center answering a hotline. 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 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 of the LGBTQ community. And so I feel a responsibility to be accessible. And I take that very seriously. And so when people want to convey concerns, share ideas, or just talk and get to know me as a member of the LGBTQ family, I'm here. Give me a ring. Sometimes my calendar is kind of full and we have to finangle away to get folks scheduled in. But I am an individual who wants to hear from my community and the people that I serve. Yeah, that's a big problem is people we who feel that we're not listened to or that our concerns aren't heard or that we're just talking in the wind. Yeah. And to come here and to have somebody listen is very important. 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 and 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 to feel comfortable here, too. Oh, yeah. It's a space where you can feel at home. Well, I hope so. An LGBTQ 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 LGBTQ community center, our family is so diverse. We have people of different life experiences, different ages, different belief systems. You know, you just wear a little microcosm of our country, I guess you could say. And so 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. We want you to play a role in it and we want you to be very comfortable when you're here. Now, we're sitting in a youth space currently, right? This, you know, the Pride Center of Vermont has a wide variety of programming. We have the facility and 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 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 PFLAG anymore, but we have a support group for the friends and family and loved ones of individuals who are LGBTQ. We have the transgender and gender non-conforming community project. They have planning meetings and they also have like trans town halls and support groups that meets here. Of 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. It seems like every night, even though we're closed, we have something going on. You know, a living positive group of individuals who are HIV positive. We have a 12-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 that meets called Momentum that meets every week. We have LGBTQ individuals 40 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 are interested in starting it or we'll talk to you about starting it. So check us out sometime. We have a lot of programs that happen both here at the center and out in the community. And we're working on some ideas to take our programming and services out across the state to reach our LGBTQ family that lives in some of the more rural areas of Vermont. Yeah, do you have any connections to LGBTQ spaces in the more rural areas? We work with a couple of the programs. Now, what is there's there's the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont, the Rainbow Umbrella. What else is there? We do, but I don't remember them all. You're asking a newbie. But I can just 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 LGBTQ organizations across Vermont to make sure that our family as a whole is served regardless of where they live. There you go. Yeah, we come back again. One of the things that's happening here, this is a pivotal year for the Pride Center. We are talking about, you know, this is our 20th anniversary. We're talking about what the next 20 years will look like. We are talking about doing a community survey to 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 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, giving it a little polish, maybe repainting, and who knows what else we're going to do. We're just giving, you know, giving the Center a fresh look for the next 20 years. So we do hope that y'all will come back, learn about some of the new programings that we're offering and look at the refresh space. Thanks, Susan. You made us feel at home. Thank you. I'm glad y'all came. It is kind of a cool little spot. You can find us on Facebook and on Twitter and our website is PrideCenterVT.org. Make sure to check it out. Sign up for our newsletter and stay in touch with us and keep abreast of what's going on here at this organization.