Pride Community Center of North Central Florida

The Pride Community Center of North Central Florida exists to strengthen the well-being and visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, and people of other gender and sexual minorities, across Gainesville and the counties around it. Its mission also reaches outward: to promote public understanding and affirmation of people of all gender expressions and sexual orientations, inclusive of race, ethnic background, nationality, economic stability, spirituality, age and ability.

The Center is best known for the Gainesville Pride Festival, which it has organized since 2001 in partnership with the City of Gainesville, Visit Gainesville / Alachua County, the Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area and local businesses. The festival takes place each fall at Bo Diddley Plaza downtown, with commercial, food and nonprofit vendors alongside musicians, bands and drag performers. Each year the Center also hosts the Spirit of Pride Awards, a dinner that recognizes people who have strengthened the community.

Much of the Center's work is practical. The Gainesville Area AIDS Project (GAAP) began in 1993, when people living with AIDS, caregivers and friends came together to meet needs no one else was meeting, and it became a program of the Center in 2018. Today GAAP serves a hot meal, fresh bread and bags of pantry food to people living with HIV each week at First United Methodist Church, and clients pick up household cleaning supplies and toiletries on a rotating schedule, items that SNAP and other public benefits do not cover. Enrollment is simple: bring a letter of eligibility or a case worker's information to a service day.

The Audre Lorde Memorial Library, named for the Black lesbian poet and activist, holds more than 1,500 books available to borrow for up to two months, including youth and YA fiction, parenting guides for LGBTQ+ families and medical references on transition. Monthly gatherings give people of every age a place to connect: Gainesville Pride Student Meet-ups offer middle and high school students a free dinner and time with peers, with a separate room for parents; Rainbow Resilience is a mental health group for adults led by a licensed clinical social worker; Out & About brings LGBTQIA+ adults and allies together for friendship; and Drag Bingo draws a crowd. The Center has long hosted allied groups too, including PFLAG Gainesville and the Human Rights Council of North Central Florida, and its resource pages point people to crisis lines, inclusive health care providers, transgender support and legal help.

The board voted to buy a permanent home after years in temporary spaces. The building provides room for the Center's offices, meeting rooms and program space for its affiliated groups and allied organizations, and for the library.

There are many ways in. Memberships are low-cost and free for anyone under 18 and for volunteers who give 20 hours a year. Volunteers staff the festival, Drag Bingo, the library team and the youth and family team, and people with trade skills such as plumbing, electrical and carpentry can help with the new building. Gifts to the capital campaign go directly toward it.