LGBTQ centers in the East Bay are dealing with some of the challenges being presented by 2025 in new ways. For example, the Pacific Center for Human Growth, the oldest LGBTQ center in the Bay Area, launched a fundraising drive this Pride Month and will be having its inaugural Berkeley Pride street fair on August 16.
Lasara Firefox Allen, MSW, is the CEO of the center, which is the third oldest nationally and serves 5,000 people annually with a budget of $2.75 million, according to center officials. Allen started at the center three years ago and, in January, moved from being its executive director to its CEO.
“The board of directors and I all agreed that having a CEO title made sense in the current iteration of our organization,” Allen, who is nonbinary and pansexual, said in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
In corporations, executive directors are usually “mid-management,” Allen explained, while in nonprofits it’s the head of the group. By making this clearer to potential corporate donors, Allen and the board are trying to make the chain of command more transparent as they work to recruit community partners.
“We’re doing a lot of our front-facing work finding community partners and diverse funding streams,” Allen said. “Strategically, it felt like a better match.”
Hence, the late summer celebration it is hosting. Last year, there was a resource fair timed to the third Saturday in August, which is Berkeley’s official Pride Day.
“The response was amazing,” Allen said.
This will be the first time the event will be a street fair instead of simply a resource fair. The footprint will be next to the UC Berkeley campus, on Oxford Street from Center Street to University Avenue, and on Addison Street from Oxford Street to Kala Bagai Way.
Meanwhile, the center hopes to raise $110,000 by July 1, and people can donate on the center’s webpage through Monday, June 30. As of press time June 27, the center has raised $59,242, or just over half its goal.
The amount has surpassed the $50,000 shortfall the center is facing in its next fiscal year due to cuts at the state level, according to the donation page.
“That means fewer dollars for mental health programs, cultural work, and essential community services. The truth is: it’s not just about surviving–it’s about continuing to lead with pride, purpose, and power right here in Berkeley, as we have done for over 50 years,” noted center officials.
Christopher Stemborowski, a gay man who is the president of the Pacific Center’s board, stated to the B.A.R. that, “Spearheading Berkeley's first-ever Pride with a street fair is one of the most tangible ways Pacific Center can gather our community, give a platform to groups and individuals who are being marginalized, and put our mission into action.”
Stemborowski also stated the organization is trying “to do everything we can to increase the service hours we provide to meet the ever-increasing community needs. We aim to be a resource community members can come to and an organization that is active, visible and contributing in the community at this moment of uncertainty.”
The board is pleased with Allen’s leadership, he stated.
"The day-to-day leadership that Lasara has guided Pacific Center with for more than three years now has deepened Pacific Center's roots in the community, and we intend to draw on those deeper roots to grow our impact,” he continued. “In our most recent annual report, we were proud to share a 58.6% annual increase in total service hours (6,037) delivered across all (clinical and community) programs. In our next fiscal year (beginning on July 1), we are facing unprecedented uncertainty. Despite this, we have an expanded budget, which is currently planned around $2.75 million.”
The center provides its Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives for older adults, and case management services, counseling, and HIV-related services, including a support group.
The center is going to be impacted by budget cuts; specifically, because of state Proposition 1 winning in March 2024, which has implications for preventative mental health care the center provides. Prop 1, championed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D), moves existing mental health care and addiction funds from the state to counties.
“We have a $1 million budget gap in 2026-2027 tied to Prop 1,” Allen said. “I understand why people voted for it, but it was written in a way that defunds all preventive care.”
Allen added, “Thankfully, we do not have a lot of federal funds. If we did, we’d be in an even worse place.”
The Pacific Center is located at 2130 Center Street in Berkeley. For more information, visit pacificcenter.org.
Concord center buffeted by staff, fiscal tumult
The Rainbow Community Center in Concord serves Contra Costa County. It had a $1.75 million budget in 2024, according to its most recent IRS Form 990, which showed a deficit of $119,025. Executive Director Jorge "JC" Chamorro said the center is still getting government funds, and that the budget was reduced to $1.3 million in the current fiscal year, concluding soon.
“We have a grant with the county for [HIV and STI] tests, which is still keeping our doors open,” he said.
Chamorro said the center also is seeing a “slow down” in donations since last year. Thankfully, however, there’s been an “increase from some people, as far as donations, and people want to volunteer and do community service with us,” he said, since the election and second inauguration of President Donald Trump.
People wanting to volunteer with the Rainbow center have no shortage of options. One program takes seniors to “a different restaurant to have lunch and mingle together” once a month. Another, a summer camp for youth, starts June 30.
“This is our day camp we do every year,” Chamorro said, adding every Monday youth can drop by 2380 Salvio Street to “talk, chill, do homework and be at the center.”
Chamorro, who is pansexual, started as an executive director in September.
The center served 3,022 clients in fiscal year 2023-2024, the last year for which a final count is available, Chamorro confirmed June 20. When 2024-2025 is complete as of July 1, he expects a similar number.
In recent weeks there was a dust up at the center after Cori "Correen" Johnson was terminated as co-executive director. Johnson, a queer woman who was the center’s only Black staff member, removed the access of Jonathan Lee, a gay man who is treasurer and former interim executive director, from the center’s Google account, which led to an abrupt meeting in which Johnson was fired in a 3-2 vote of the board, as the Pioneer reported.
Subsequently, a Cha petition got 247 signatures saying the unionized staff of the center took a vote of no confidence in Lee, demanded he be removed, and called for Johnson to be reinstated.
“I was wrongfully terminated in what I believe to be direct retaliation for whistleblowing,” Johnson stated to the B.A.R. “Just 90 minutes after voicing these concerns, a special board meeting was convened to vote on my removal – a meeting I was never notified of, invited to, or given the opportunity to participate in.”
Johnson continued, “Throughout my tenure, I received no written or verbal warnings or performance concerns from the board. In fact, my leadership was consistently praised. As former co-executive director, I brought transparency, strategic direction, and a deep commitment to Rainbow’s mission – qualities I upheld not for personal recognition, but because of my lifelong connection to Contra Costa County, where I was raised and continue to live, grow, and serve.”
Lee stated to the B.A.R. that he was blackmailed and told, “If you don’t resign from the board, I’m going to tell everyone about you deleting emails and attempts at union busting.”
He wrote a blog post in response to the staff's petition.
“It’s hard to refute lies and misinformation verbally without all the evidence,” he explained to the B.A.R.
That’s enough for Chamorro, who said, “If not for Jonathan Lee refuting everything – it opened a lot of people’s eyes about what’s been going on behind closed doors.”
The B.A.R. reached out to the members of the center’s board for comment. Jassy Mopera, the board’s president-elect, stated June 25 that “Johnson illegally took control” of the Google account, and “we did not know what she was up to.”
“We asked that she restore it, but she refused and made demands,” Mopera stated in an email. “She was not authorized to change the Super Admin of our Google Workforce system to just her, which is what she did, which places all our other accounts at risk. The board met, and motioned to remove her from the co-ED position. It has been made very publicly that there was a decision to call the police, a decision I challenged. It was because of me that the Concord PD was not asked to press charges.”
Mopera continued that, “Jonathan emailed Cori stating that we were going to contact Concord PD for help and that is when she restored Jorge’s access back to be the Super Admin. We then met again in a special board meeting to ratify the vote during the emergency meeting. There were many lies said by Johnson, and it’s all been addressed through.”
Board member D’Marco J. Anthony also provided a written statement.
“The union staff’s vote of no confidence against Jonathan Lee is a serious issue that my colleagues and I do not take lightly. When the staff raises concerns with the board and/or any of its members, it is important that we listen and do our due diligence in addressing those concerns,” Anthony stated. “The Rainbow Community Center can only thrive when we work together as a community and have mutual respect for one another. I sincerely hope we can all come together by deescalating the situation and avoiding division. We must ensure that our staff and community members have full faith and confidence in our leadership.”
In spite of the apparent personnel issues, center officials said their focus remains on serving the needs of Contra Costa County’s LGBTQ community. For more information about the Rainbow Community Center, visit rainbowcc.org.
Fairfield center awaits state funding news
The Solano Pride Center at 1234 Empire Street in Fairfield is not dealing with government grants being canceled, Executive Director Will McGarvey, an every-gender-loving man, told the B.A.R. in a phone interview. It had a budget of $417,000, according to its latest IRS-990 disclosure, and ran a surplus of $39,573 for the fiscal year that ended in 2024.
“No changes to that,” he said. “Fortunately, we have not had any federal grants or contracts siphoned or decreased or anything yet.”
However, that doesn’t mean all is copacetic.
“We’re waiting for that shoe to drop,” McGarvey said. “We might see issues with Prop 1, our behavioral health funding. … Every county has a while to figure that out.”
McGarvey continued, “The biggest issue so far for us is the slowdown of donations to the center since the election. We anticipate we’re $20,000 behind where we need to be as part of our fiscal year.”
To attempt to deal with this, McGarvey said the center is “moving to expand our direct donor engagement, especially through the mail. We’ve already been doing a lot online, through email blasts, but what we haven’t done as much here is reaching out to potential new givers.”
The center offers a variety of programs, including mental health resources, senior and youth services, and HIV prevention and support. It also partners with other nonprofits in the county, such as the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive.
Ms. Bob Davis, a transgender woman who founded the Vallejo-based archive, noted the center’s help in the community.
“The Solano Pride Center is the inclusive heart of Solano county’s LGBTQ+ community,” Davis wrote in an email.
The center was a co-sponsor of last year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance in Vallejo and is helping publicize the archive’s exhibit of classic old transgender posters now on display at the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum through June 28.
Last year, the center saw 2,400 clients face-to-face total. So far in 2025, it has already counted 2,500, plus 6,000 at the Suisun City Pride event on June 1, McGarvey confirmed June 20.
For more information, go to solanopride.org
