Social Justice Spotlight: The Q Center
Do you wish you could help make the community a better place, but aren’t sure how? Let’s learn about a local organization making a genuine positive impact on the community.
The Q Center is located on N Mississippi St., around a 20-minute drive from Reed. The organization was started by a collection of folks who recognized the need of the queer community in Portland to have a gathering space to generate community and it’s been around for 20 years.
The Quest called Board Member and Co-Treasurer Kaj Jensen to better understand the work the Q Center does for the community. They described it as an “intergenerational queer community center,” which hosts various queer organizations that do positive work for the community. During the last election cycle, the Q Center worked with the Gay Men’s Choir and supported their voter outreach program. They’ve also hosted a “Gender Marker and Name Change Free Legal Clinic” run by Lewis & Clark College, which, as the name suggests, offered free legal advice on how to officially change one’s name and/or gender markers in a variety of official systems.
The Q Center also has a program called the Gender-Affirming Career Closet, which offers a selection of gender-affirming business attire for those “going to interviews, those who are newly working, and those who are recently out in their job,” according to their website. Another way they’ve provided resources for the queer community of Portland is in teaching self-defense classes for youth and all age groups.
The Q Center is also deeply involved with the Hand Up Project, which runs the People’s Pantry. At the People’s Pantry inside the Q Center, folks can drop in to choose food from a variety of options. It’s open Mondays and Tuesdays 12:00–4:00pm, and every fourth Saturday 10:00am–1:00pm. According to their website, the Hand Up Project is “the only LGBTQ2SIA+ formed and led food assistance program open to the public in Portland.” If you want to get involved with this great organization at the Q Center, you can sign up to volunteer on their website!
The Q Center also runs the Marsha P. Johnson Community Fund, which gives micro-grants to Black and Indigenous trans folks to cover emergency expenses. There’s a very low barrier for entry, and they are willing to cover eviction expenses, work emergencies, unexpected medical bills, car repairs, and more. Students can also donate directly into the fund to provide their support for this marginalized community.
If you’d like to get personally involved with the Q Center, it is first and foremost a space for people to come together. According to Jensen, the Q Center is “happy to be that third space” where you don’t have to buy coffee or alcohol to “have a space to host [your] Queer D&D campaign.” Jensen also recommended Reed students to get in contact with the Q Center to peruse the huge list of affinity groups they are affiliated with. They also have a newsletter you can sign up for, if that’s more your style.
Jensen also emphasized that, although the Q Center has an official structure, they’re “dreaming big” about where the organization could go in the future. While, at the moment, they rent their building and sublet to other nonprofits, they’d rather have it be a more equitable, collaborative setup. They are working on developing partnerships along a cooperative model.
Although their name sounds intense, the Q Center’s Board of Directors is really just a collection of “people who are really passionate about building community,” according to Jensen. They described how it's a “very diverse board, across all dimensions,” and so you shouldn’t feel intimidated by reaching out. They even offered that if anyone wanted to come be a fly on the wall during a board meeting just to see how the organization works, to get more involved, or even to apply to join the board, they would be open to talking.
If you have a moment and the passion, get involved!