Queer SLO had the pleasure of sitting down with Erica, Denise and Allen of 5 Cities Hope for our first interview. From dirty 30 party origins to community bonfires, youth programming, the first 5 Cities Pride and Erica’s recent Top 20 Under 40 win, we covered significant ground. Mostly we were struck by the authenticity, humility and true passion for community this group brings to everything they do. Consider donating to their gofundme campaign to help launch their first Pride in June. Cheers, new friends!
Tell me a little bit about your background and how you got involved with 5 Cities Hope.
Erica: Growing up, I was very at-risk. I had a lot of issues with school and having ADHD, went to Lopez Continuation, almost didn’t graduate high school and didn’t go back to college until I was 26. I navigated life very differently than the average but I eventually got myself on track. Got my bachelor’s, started working on my Master’s. So that’s what drove me with starting 5 Cities Hope – to be there for youth and especially at-risk youth. There are a lot of kids in the LGBTQ community that don’t really find their way, so that was my big inspiration.
It was also the 2016 election. I felt like we really had to find each other, like we need to do this. And I was really inspired by Santa Maria House of Pride and Equality because we were friends with them, and I thought, “well, if you guys can do it, we can totally do it.” They really supported us and that’s kind of how it was born.
Denise: I grew up locally in Nipomo and was one of three people in my GSA. I was the president because there were none of us. Went to San Jose State and while I was there, I was a co-chair of a student organization called Queers Thoughtfully Interrupting Prejudice (QTIP). We all kind of just hung out, talked about whatever was going on locally or politically with queer things. In the residence hall, I was also on a floor called Rainbow Village, which was geared towards queer students. It was really cool to teach people who didn’t identify as queer about queer things, how to be allies and a bunch of cool positive stuff. When I moved back here to the Central Coast, I think I was here for maybe a year before going to a 5 Cities Hope bonfire. It felt very familiar to me. I realized that I could help with a lot of the things that I was already doing in San Jose and it just seemed like a pretty seamless, natural transition for me to do what I do here now.
Allen: The way I started was accidentally meeting Erica. We didn’t know we were related until we were going to the Boys & Girls Club. She started working there and her nephew said, “what’s up, cousin?” I didn’t know, I thought her was just making a joke. Then I asked my dad, “Hey dad, are we we related to the Andrade’s?” And my dad said, “Yeah, we are.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” We started hanging out with Erica, and for her birthday we threw a party for her, and then that’s how it kind of opened up the doors for me. I never knew anything about the LGBT community. I was just kind of closed-minded and now I get to hang out with everyone and it’s super cool. It kind of opened up my doors and it’s nice to see the difference around people, you know?
Was this the dirty 30 party?
Erica: Yeah!
Denise: I wasn’t there for that.
Erica: Yeah, that was before we met. After the election, I told myself, “okay, I’m going to turn 30 in February. I want some sort of organization to happen.” What better situation to open it up for everybody? So we rented a beach house in Grover, opened it up on Facebook and announced it, and we got about 60-70 people to show up. It was a tiny, little house. That literally was our first event – a party / birth of an organization. And that was when I realized, “oh my God, there’s a large amount of people that need this inclusive space.”
What kinds of things were you hearing at the dirty 30 party in terms of what the community was needing or wanting?
Allen: A lot of people were excited about it. We said, “we’re going to start this,” and everyone said, “please do so, we need something like this around the 5 Cities!” So when Erica decided to start a nonprofit, I said, “let’s do it!”
Erica: “Just go with it” was our motto for the longest time. To this day, people are saying, “there’s something in the South County, there’s something in the 5 Cities?” Nothing has existed here, so just having a space, it’s a big thing. And now we’re going to have Pride. I’ve had people come up and talk to me saying, “I’ve cried over this, I’m really emotional about this.” It’s an older generation that has never had anything or never thought anything like that would happen here.
Tell me about your programming. Bonfires, youth group – give me an overview:
Erica: The bonfires are actually something I did as a kid and in high school. It’s a big hangout – we range from babies to people in their 70’s with music, hot dogs and smores. Usually 40-70 people show up. It’s one of our members’ favorite events.
Denise: All of our events are all-ages and family friendly. Many of the events locally, mostly in San Luis and Santa Maria, are 21 and over, 18 and over events. You can’t really take your children to bars. Growing up here with nothing for us to do as teens, and now having lots of friends with kids, we wanted to make sure that all of our events are open to anyone who wants to come out.
Erica: We also have a teen youth group. It’s a very social, supportive hangout. I think that’s what we try to do – preventative social work. Hang out, chill, make friends, if you don’t know this person, you welcome them. I’m hoping this youth group grows and I think it will because we also do outreach to the Gay Straight Alliances at the high school.
Awesome! What does that look like?
Erica: Oh, it’s one of my favorite things to do.
Denise: It’s so different from when I was growing up. We visited Nipomo and it was the same advisor I had when I was there. So it was really cool seeing her, but there were 30 kids in there, and I there were 3 when I was there!
Erica: Yeah, and what’s even wilder is that most of the middle schools in this area have GSA’s, many with 15-20 students. It’s just so hopeful to see that they’re organizing or being part of it at such a young age. This is part of what makes 5 Cities Hope different, too. We’re on the ground going to these GSA’s, getting to know these kids – we’re going to them. We hear other organizations say they don’t do as much outreach, but that’s how you get these kids to stick with you or be part of your events and just form that relationship. I try to get to at least one monthly and they really get to know you and they trust you.
Tell me about Fright Night – what goes into that?
Denise: Fright Night started in 2017. We partnered with CAPSLO. The director, Kayla Wilburn, came to us and said, “hey, we want to do a movie night.” And it was supposed to start out as a movie night and the more we talked about it, it very quickly evolved into something much larger than just a movie night.
Erica: It always seems to happen that way.
Denise: It very quickly turned into the kids wanting to do this and this and, we want a haunted house, and a maze, and … I was like, hold on. This was in mid-August and our first Fright Night was the Saturday night before Halloween in October. And I don’t know how we did it, but we did it. The closer we got to Fright Night, the more we said we’re never doing this again, this is terrible, this is the worst thing. And then it happened.
We had teens come from Arroyo Grande and Nipomo and we did a haunted hallway where we decorated the clinic hallway, and the kids loved it. They had a wonderful time. We had a costume contest, a drawing where we made halloween baskets where people donated money or stuff, we played Beetlejuice and 75 people showed up. We thought, “this was really cool, we need to do it again.” And so we immediately started planning for the next Fright Night. We played Hocus Pocus, which happened to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Hocus Pocus. That was just on accident. I just really like Hocus Pocus. I thought, “Hey, I make the flyers, so I’m going to pick Hocus Pocus.”
Allen: Yeah, we didn’t get to choose. Boom.
Denise: I had the flyer done in January 2018 for an event in October. I was like here you go, this is it, we’re doing Hocus Pocus. And it was really great, we had 150-175 people, and all the teens came out again.
Erica: One cute story from the teen youth group. There were two kiddos, both trans, and they’re together. And we asked, “oh how did you all meet?” They were spilling the tea on their relationship. And they told us, “we actually met at Fright Night.” And I thought, “YESSSS.” They met at Fright Night, they’ve been together for a few months now, and it just melted my heart. It’s those moments where I feel like this is so much work, but wow, it really is making a difference. And so many of these kids who met at Fright Night are still hanging out outside of 5 Cities Hope, middle schoolers and high schoolers. They’re forming their own community and friendship. It’s really amazing to see that.
When I went to Queer Night at the Slice, it seemed like there were a lot of teens there just having a ball.
Erica: Yeah, and it’s a lot of middle school kids. They’re excited that they don’t have to go SLO, that it’s right here. I see it as like we’re an extension of a family. Everyone is welcome and we make the effort to get to know every single person that comes.
Denise: We also get a lot of parents who come with the youth, and they actually stay and hang out and talk to people.
I totally felt that vibe. You all were just casual and welcoming.
Erica: Good! Yeah, I’ve rarely had that feeling with groups around the county, so I really make an effort to make sure everyone feels included. We get to know every person or try to introduce people to someone, so no one feels like they don’t belong.
Ok. Let’s talk about Pride. What are the details, what are your goals and how can people support you?
Denise: It’s Saturday, June 1st at Heritage Square Park in the Village of Arroyo Grande 12pm-4pm.
Erica: I want to raise about $5,000, so we’ll be having a couple fundraisers coming up. That’s a really great way to support us because we are very grassroots. Folks can always donate to our Pride gofundme campaign! Also, February 26, we’re having an event at the Slice – they’re giving us free pizza, free soda, half off games, and then hopefully people will donate and we’ll have a drawing.
Denise: Yeah, and since we try to support local businesses who are LGBTQ friendly like the Slice, another idea for Pride is to do something called “Stride with Pride”. In the Villages, there are a lot of mom and pop shops. So we want to make a map in partnership with these businesses that are queer friendly where the people at Pride can go and maybe get like 10% off a meal or 5% off whatever your purchase is. We want to encourage people to shop local as well as coming to Pride.
Erica: It’s a different level of event to have food vendors and we’re not quite there yet. So we really just want to focus on Arroyo Grande, small businesses, and we want to highlight the supportive places because I think everyone should know where they are. The Parks and Recreation Department really liked the idea.
Besides going to the fundraisers or just donating, how else can people support you?
Denise: We have Pride committee meetings that at this point meet monthly, every second Saturday of the month, except for April which will be the first Saturday. We’ll have it on our Facebook and on our website. We’re going to have subcommittees like decoration, entertainment, fundraising, etc. So that’s a great way to get involved.
Erica: Yeah, and also just volunteering, too, just being a part of it because this is a community event. This is definitely going to be organized by our community. We need and welcome everyone’s input and help, it can’t just be us.
Top 20 under 40 – tell me about what it means to you to have been an award recipient and to represent the queer community?
Erica: It’s very wild because it feels like I’m the underdog. Like I was mentioning growing up at-risk, I was a punk kid, dropped out, went back to continuation, got my high school diploma at 18, and then I was still just kind of wandering around in life. Moved to Washington DC, I was a baker for a while, and I just navigated. 5 Cities Hope was just something I thought of after the 2016 election and to see such a reception and to see how people are into it, it’s wild. I never thought I’d win something like this because a lot of the nominees and people who won are very established, have their businesses. I definitely feel like I’m the underdog, just some average person living life. And with the top 20 under 40, it’s an incredible feeling to know that someone like me can win something like that, or just be part of that company of folks.
In representing the queer community, I’m really more excited to have additional exposure for 5 Cities Hope. Honestly, that was my first thought – people are going to know that 5 Cities has something, that there’s a thriving community here, that we’re going to have Pride. It’s awesome, it’s great, but there’s more work to be done. I’m excited to be the queerest one there.
It’s also really important to acknowledge that these people here are helping run 5 Cities Hope and deserve just as much of the credit. Yeah, I might be the face of it or the director, but it’s a lot of work that these board members are putting into it. This is not just me, this is a movement in itself, with volunteers and friends giving of themselves.
I heard you’re engaged – congratulations! Any wedding plans yet / anything Queer SLO can do to help? Recommending any wedding vendors or venues?
Erica: Tell her, honey.
Denise: Well, I’m very introverted, I don’t like a lot of people. Which is very interesting considering I’m a co-chair for a nonprofit which is very, very social. So, Erica comes from a very large family and I kind of don’t. So I think if it was just our immediate families combined, it’s still upwards of 45 people, and that’s too many people. So, I would love to get married just the two of us and then have a big fun party afterwards with everyone. And I told her you can invite whoever you want to that party. So yeah, any recommendations for the after party, let us know.
Allen: Are we going to do the dollar dance?
Erica: We’re poor, we can do it.
Allen: That could help out with 5 Cities Hope.
Erica: Yep, it’s like having a 5 Cities Hope wedding.
Denise: I feel like whoever gets invited to our wedding or after party is basically 5 Cities Hope anyway, so I mean, indirectly it probably would be a 5 Cities Hope event, just not open to the public.
Lastly, what are your hopes and dreams for the future, both for 5 Cities Hope and in life?
Erica: For me, get my master’s in counseling because I really needed a good counselor when I was young and I didn’t have one, so that’s my biggest motivation. And for 5 Cities, we’ve kind of tackled the goals already. Pride was supposed to be a 5 year goal. Just go with it. But honestly for me, it would be to just see it thrive more, have a big youth group, have it get bigger and better every week. Survive Pride. And then, we’re talking 10 year goal, for us to actually have our own physical space, rainbow flag out the door on Grand Avenue or in Pismo somewhere, just marking our presence here. That would be one of the all-time goals for 5 Cities. And just being able to financially sustain it through grants and fundraising.
Denise: Back at San Jose State, we had an LGBTQ resource center there, and they had internships through the schools that were paid. So something for me as a 15 year goal, I would love to be able to employ students and have that as a space so they can have these resources and be a resource to other people, and also get paid. Being a teen and having jobs is sometimes a necessity, and having the ability to spend money and have that community is a great way to build relationships in your community.
Allen: For me, it’s just finish school and use my knowledge for learning the business ropes. Kind of bringing that into 5 Cities Hope.
Any final thoughts you want to add? This has been awesome, thank you so much for being Queer SLO’s very first interview!
Denise: Thank YOU. This is very intriguing to me because I love podcasts and I love interviews. So I’m like, ooh, cool, we need to be a part of this.
Erica: Yeah, she’s the techie one.
Denise: I do most of our social media and flyers and stuff.
Erica: Her flyer game is the best and she is self-taught. This is DIY. All of our things are DIY, but her flyers kick butt.
Allen: And it’s kinda funny because I’ll be trying to work on flyer for something totally different and I’m like, uh, where’s Denise when you need her? I need Denise.
Denise: Also, with flyers I’m very particular in how I like things and so it’s very hard for me to give the power to other people to do flyers.
Allen: That is very true. I can vouch for that.
Denise: I came in and Allen was doing a flyer and I thought that’s cool, that’s very nice. But in my head I would’ve done all of this completely different. But that’s cool, that’s just how it is.
Erica: And that’s the hard part. Oh, I’ll just do it, oh, I’ll just do it – managing, taking the help.
Allen: And I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes or anything.
Denise: No, the flyer looked great. It looked wonderful.
Allen: Yeah.
Everyone: hahahahahaha!
Erica: And now you know us. We’re a mess, but we made it happen.
Denise: We’re a put-together mess. On paper, we look really good.
Erica: And that’s 5 Cities Hope.