An open door for all: The Center turns 30

It’s been 30 years of open doors and open arms alike.

In 1993, The Center opened in downtown Las Vegas as a come-one, come-all community center with a focus on serving the city’s LGBTQ+ population.

“It’s absolutely essential for the LGBTQ community to feel like we have a space where we can go and gather with people with whom we identify, gather in a place that’s safe and affirming and welcoming,” says The Center CEO John Waldron. “Because not everybody in the LGBTQ community is welcomed everywhere. Some of our folks that we serve — like our transgender community or intersex community, gender-nonconforming folks — every day, they face obstacles in the workplace and accessing resources. It’s absolutely critical that they have a place where they can go and find advocacy and somebody that says, ‘I’m here to help.’”

The Center’s mission has expanded over the years, with a current focus on health and wellness, advocacy and community building. The Center Advocacy Network pairs victims of crime or those in crisis with a victim’s advocate, while their medical clinic and pharmacy offers primary care, HIV and STD testing and prescription medications.

“Somebody can come in our doors, get counseling, get tested, get treated, get their prescription, and walk out the door with those medications,” Waldron says. “And when you’re talking about somebody that is on HIV or newly diagnosed with HIV, it’s absolutely critical to get them on the medication right away. And we’re able to do that all in one location.”

There’s also a wide-ranging selection of events and programs targeted at everyone from kids to seniors with specific programming tailored to the Latin, Black and transgender communities, among others.

Additionally, they work with the unhoused and those in need.

“We have things like a food bank, we have clothing programs,” Waldron says, “and all of that has evolved out of the fact that the need for that existed where we’re located, where we may have somebody that walks through our door that tells us they have no shoes or they’re hungry.”

And that door is open to everyone.

“You don’t have to be LGBTQ,” Waldron says. “We want to serve the whole community.”