LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The City of Louisville is working to open its first LGBTQ community center in nearly 40 years. This comes as the Louisville Pride Foundation organization prepares to host pride celebrations next weekend.
What You Need To Know
- The Louisville Pride Foundation community center is located at 1244 S. 3rd St.
- Mike Slaton serves as the Executive Director for the nonprofit
- The community center will open on National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11
It’s been 40 years since Louisville has had a center to help people in the LGBTQ community. The new center will be found on the upper levels of the Asia Institute Crane House in Old Louisville.
Inside the Louisville Pride Foundation’s community center, everything is getting a facelift.
Old carpet is now being replaced with a hardwood floor on the 2nd and 3rd floor of the Crane House. Mike Slaton serves as the Louisville Pride Foundation’s executive director, and has been behind the much needed renovation since Nov. 2021.
“The last of the flooring work is happening right now,” Slaton said this week.
Slaton has served as the center’s executive director for four years. Before that, he volunteered with the organization. He’s allowed people to use part of the center since May 2022 as a part of their soft opening.
He’s proud of how versatile the nearly 7,000 square foot space is.
“If you need a meeting for five people, you’re not tying up the whole space. We’ve had name change clinics, we’ve done receptions, game nights, there’s an alcohol anonymous group that meets up here,” said Slaton.
For over 40 years, Slaton said Louisville has been without a central space to provide resources to people in the LGBTQ community. It’s a long time coming, to say the least.
Elevators were recently added as a way to serve as many people as possible.
“Everything is getting replaced eventually, then in this room this is going to be our business center,” said Slaton.
The center will collaborate with other LGBTQ nonprofits to provide legal services, mental health assistance and community events. For that reason, board member Augustus Seabrooke at the center hopes the space will be a second home for LGBTQ people that face adversity in their family or community.
“We can still care for our family members who are a part of the LGBTQ community and we can do that in a way that allows people like me to participate and actually be productive members of the community,” said Seabrooke.
When the Louisville Pride Foundation isn’t overseeing renovations, they’re typing emails or making calls for the annual pride celebrations this month. Slaton said he’s happy big companies now want to sponsor the festival that haven’t been in the past.
“Twenty years ago, organizations like [Ford, GE and Kroger] did not sponsor LGBTQ events and now we have all these major companies and major employers,” said Slaton.
Pride celebrations will be held Sept. 17 along Bardstown Road in Louisville and as for the grand opening of the community center, you’ll have to wait until Oct. 11.
That’s a day significant to many people in the LGBTQ community because it’s National Coming Out Day.
The center will be open Monday through Thursday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. People interested in this month’s pride festivities can read about it here.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Augustus Seabrooke. The error has been corrected. We apologize for the mistake.