The LGBT Center Orange County's Expanding Reach

The LGBT Center O.C. celebrates the opening of its new arts-oriented location, the Brad Brafford Center located in the heart of downtown Santa Ana on 4th Avenue.

"Engage, Empower and Explore." That's the motto behind Orange County's newest LGBTQ center expansion. The new cultural center, an offshoot of the LGBT Center O.C. (and named after the Center's co-founder), seeks to enrich the lives of those in the O.C. through lively special events, groundbreaking community partnerships and an adult education program that, according to the Center's website, "is out of this world."

While such hyperbole may have skeptics raising an eyebrow or two, the Center's Executive Director, Kevin O'Grady, promises that the words will be justified. "We wanted to extend the Center's reach to not just become a community hub, but a beacon for the Orange County LGBTQ community," he says. "The best way to do this was to provide our community with unprecedented access to education, empowering, insightful and nurturing seminars, workshops and courses."

Seminars and workshops currently being offered include the all-ages Between the Covers Book Club, a Poetry Workshop, cooking and ballroom dancing classes designed to nourish body and soul, travel forums, Social Security seminars and home-buying workshops. There are even courses offered for jewelry making, speed dating and dog training. Meanwhile, the Center will also feature rotating art exhibits throughout the year, with each one highlighting various LGBTQ themes and issues or promoting
culture and community.

One such exhibit, "We're Here, We're Queer," is currently running through Tuesday, June 30, and features works whose themes include LGBTQ political and identity issues, as well as celebrations of diversity. The works on display in the exhibit were chosen from close to 100 submissions from local artists by a select group of art jurors, with the intention of shining a light on the many disparate elements that make up the community.

"It is our intention to educate those who are not knowledgeable about the LGBT community and its issues," posits the Center's Development Coordinator, Navreet Dhaliwal, who adds that the Center on 4th's location was chosen with specific purpose: "Downtown Santa Ana has a rich cultural history expressed through art, which we embrace and want to be a part of."

Although the Center on 4th is named after Brafford, Dhaliwal says that the building was furnished in homage to the activists and community leaders who have supported not just the LGBT Center, but the community over the years. "When you walk through the space, you can see that we've made efforts to always remain humble to the individuals that got us here," Dhaliwal states, and adds that the Center on 4th's planning and events committee is to be commended for "continually coming up with ways we can appeal to and serve more members of the community."

"We know that our community is rich with diversity," Dhaliwal continues, "and the Center on 4th is a place that is capable of not only being an identity-affirming space for individuals of all ages, but also a space that grows with those individuals and fosters their development. It is really a special place."

The Brad Brafford Center on 4th is located at 305 East 4th Street, Suite
200, in downtown Santa Ana. For information, call 714.953.5428 or go to lgbtcenteroc.org/centeron4