Metro Diversity Center GRAND OPENING!

This started out as simply a little blurb about:

Metro Diversity Center GRAND OPENING!
“A Special Collaboration with MCC Tampa”
Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
Grand Opening is Friday, January 20th 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Entertainment * Food * Prizes *
Located at 6421 N. Florida Ave. PH: 813-232-3808
Visit online

Then I decided I wanted to know a little more about Metropolitan Charities and did a online newspaper search and internet search. Thanks to GlobalAge.org I discovered the press release below. What is interesting is that this did not appear in the St. Petersburg Times nor in the Tampa Tribune.

"News Release
Community centers join forces
to serve both sides of the Bay.
(Surprise! Two gay groups unite, rather than guard their turf!)
Contact: Metropolitan Charities Inc., Lorraine Langlois, executive director, 727-321-3854
The Center of Tampa Inc., Jim Harper, spokesperson 813-835-9396

March 10, 2005

"Two GLBT community centers in Tampa and St. Petersburg have formed a strategic partnership to share resources and work to improve services and activities on both sides of Tampa Bay.

Starting April 1, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Tampa, also known as The Center of Tampa Inc., will convert the money it has been spending to rent space on Swann Avenue to support activities at the Metro Center in St. Petersburg.

The Metro Center is a full-service GLBT community center at 3170 Third Ave. N, next door to Georgie’s Alibi. Metropolitan Charities Inc., an established St. Petersburg service provider, opened the Metro Center last fall, and it has already attracted a growing number of community groups and activities for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

The new partnership between Metropolitan Charities and the Center of Tampa is an interim step. The two groups are working together on a strategic plan, including a feasibility study, to open a new Metro Center in Tampa, perhaps as early as next fall. When that happens, the two non-profit organizations expect to merge.

“When two organizations have the same mission, it makes a lot more sense for them to work together than separately,” said Dr. Craig Linden, the Tampa center’s founder and current board member. “We think this partnership and eventual merger will help us do a better of job of serving the entire Tampa Bay community, which has been our purpose all along.”

“Joining forces with the Tampa center gives us resources we didn’t have yet,” said Lorraine Langlois, who has led Metropolitan Charities since its founding 11 years ago. “We took a big step forward when we expanded our services in St. Petersburg, and we’re pleased with the results. But without the financial and volunteer help of the Tampa supporters, we wouldn’t be ready to extend ourselves further.” Indeed, leaders of both groups say each provides something that the other has lacked.

Metropolitan Charities has a fulltime presence and a professional administrative staff. Many of its 31 staff members are supported by government grants to provide AIDS support services and cannot be used for other purposes. But the organization’s long-time stability has attracted other money that is being used to develop the community center. Such synergies have proven effective in other GLBT community centers around the country.

The Center of Tampa, meanwhile, has struggled for years to survive on volunteer help alone. It abruptly closed its doors once, and was on the verge of closing again three years ago when a new board of directors stepped forward to keep it open. Even so, the single meeting room it has subleased from Equality Florida since 2000 hasn’t been enough of an asset to help the Center expand its profile and services.

What the Center does have, however, is an endowment -- the residue of a capital fundraising drive that began 10 years ago. The original purpose of the drive was to buy a building that other GLBT organizations could use for free. That was never accomplished, and some of the money was used to support a paid executive director in the 1990s. Since then several generations of board members have vowed to keep the remaining endowment intact. About $120,000 remains.

“We were just trying to hang on, to keep the idea of the Center alive, until we could create the right combination of circumstances to move forward,” said Jim Harper, leader of the group that took over the Center in 2002. Harper and two others from that group, Martin Padgett and Herbe Murray, have remained on the board.

“My original plan was to buy a building free and clear because I thought that would work,” said Linden, who returned to the board in 2003. “But now I’m convinced there are other ways to use that money as an investment in the future – by attaching it to a proven organization with the same mission as ours, and which has the experience and skill to create a community center that thrives on its own.”

The two groups have begun exploring options for space somewhere in Central Tampa that could house a combination community and services center similar to the Metro Center in St. Petersburg. Langlois estimates that the group would need about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet. Metropolitan Charities already has a service office in Tampa, at 1549 N. Franklin Street, but it is too small for a community center as well. The lease on that building expires in September.

Meanwhile, the groups that have been using the Tampa Center are being offered temporary meeting space until the new Metro Center opens. The Center’s current location will close on April 1.

“Part of our mission is to provide a home for gay and lesbian organizations, and we don’t want to abdicate our responsibility,” said Linden. “The Center isn’t closing, just transitioning, and we don’t want to leave anyone in the lurch.”

“We considered renting some interim space, either in our current location or elsewhere,” said Linden. “But with other free space available, we decided it made more sense to focus that money on making the St. Pete center as strong as it can be, so that we can build the foundation for success in Tampa.

While the transition might seem inconvenient to some, supporters of the Tampa center say they need only look to St. Petersburg to see the payoff ahead. The Metro Center has a full calendar of movie and game nights, line dancing, art and yoga classes, discussion groups and seniors activities. It also provides office space to St. Pete Pride and True Expressions, the GLBT youth group. It has a paid part-time activities director, and other employees are available daily to answer the phones.

“We’ve been wanting something like that in Tampa for a long, long time,” said Harper. “All we need is a few more months of patience and hard work. It’ll come.”

Welcome to Seminole Heights.