CENTER’S MI CENTRO LOCATION CELEBRATES FIVE YEARS IN BOYLE HEIGHTS
VANGUARD | FALL / WINTER 2020
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t was the day before Thanksgiving last open Mi Centro in order to better serve year, and Joann Cerda wasn’t expecting the community of LGBTQ people living many folks to turn out for the monthly on the eastside of Los Angeles. Forging the partnership with LEA Familias Afortunadas meeting she moderates at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Mi “has been a really important part of what we’re doing. It allows us to expand our Centro location in Boyle Heights. “It was pouring rain outside, and reach, and it allows them to be a part of a I thought we might have maybe 10 people,” larger organization,” says Alan Acosta, the Cerda recalls. “Instead, 45 people showed Center’s director of strategic initiatives. Mi Centro is housed within City up! It ended up being this dynamic pre-Thanksgiving gathering of commu- Labs Boyle Heights, a locally owned, nity support—complete with rotisserie purpose-driven collaborative space for innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives. chickens and side dishes. It was magical.” That magic of Mi Centro began in Located at 553 S. Clarence St., between October 2015, when the Center partnered the 4th and 6th street bridges, Mi Centro with Latino Equality Alliance (LEA) to has become a space for community
gatherings, meetings, services, programs, and counseling, and, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, a Pride Pantry where residents can pick up fresh produce and dry goods every Friday for free. “Mi Centro is one of the Center’s community hubs that is focused on what people who live in the Boyle Heights area need the most,” explains Center CEO Lorri L. Jean. “One of the things that I really love about it: it’s not just LGBTQ people. It’s also our families who are participating in the programs and services. At first a lot of neighbors were skeptical about what we were going to bring to the community. Now they’re on board.”
