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Arrowhead Pride Alliance
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ARROWHEAD
PRIDE ALLIANCE
Of the Inland Empire LGBT Community
New Roads, New Homes, New Malls, New LGBT Organization!
San Bernardino County is the fastest growing area in the state!
 This fact is not even arguable, and one that is generally acknowledged by all leading demographic and economic experts throughout the nation. It only goes to suit that 10% of this new growth are
members of the LGBT Community. Along with many new families settling in the area, a new generation of LGBT youth are arriving and rising through the ranks of self actualization. The Arrowhead Alliance can help support and augment the great job the the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance already provides, and be one more viable guiding post and portal as an alternative to the dangers of a coming out experience the internet brings. The goal of the Arrowhead Alliance is to provide not just our youth, but also LGBT Seniors, and all ages in between with a reference point to other qualified
organizations, and a center for the many and diverse services required by those in the LGBT
Community in this region.
Communities through out the Foothill Inland Valleys are experiencing tremendous change that just a few years ago did not exist. Because of already evident housing and
population growth patterns along the new 210 freeway, and those in the planning stages for the future, areas like
Redlands, San Bernardino, Rialto and Fontana will be more identified with places like Pasadena than Riverside. Because of
like growth patterns along the 91 Freeway, Riverside is becoming more identified every day with places in Orange County. The once always coupled areas of the Inland Empire dominated by it’s major
cities of San Bernardino and Riverside are becoming regions unto themselves that seemingly will grow in different ways under different
influences. All of these trends also become reality in their respective
LGBT Communities as well.
It is amazing just how much change is happening everywhere around the places we call home.
With
this new growth, a new need for a fresh new organization such as the Arrowhead
Pride Alliance to serve the growing LGBT Community is increasing everyday. We can no longer sit by and watch as a vacuum bubble of needs
develop in our own immediate area. We, as an LGBT community need some sort of
viable and legitimate organization to unite us as one. In the last couple of years, Riverside has generated a well
qualified organization called the Jeffrey Owens Center. Now we also once again need to take care that our needs
are provided for as an LGBT Community. We need to make sure that not only our are needs are provided for, but protected. It’s time for our community to gather together it’s best and brightest professionals, network their talents and stand solidly upon the rock we call the Inland Empire and firmly plant our rainbow flags in a new era of LGBT Unity.
The signs of the rough decade or so that we all
experienced in the LGBT Community, and the mainstream community at large in the Inland Empire are vaporizing before our eyes. It’s now time to fill the void caused by the
disappearance of any real and viable LGBT Community Center in the Foothill Communities,
along our Mountains, and in the San Bernardino Valley now being bridged together by the near completion of the 210 Freeway. New Roads, New Homes, New Malls, and lots of new people who identify with the moniker LGBT call for a new organization called the Arrowhead
Pride Alliance of the Inland Empire.
Communities such as Pasadena and Redlands that were never mentioned in the same sentence together will now share a road way of expansion
unparalleled before.
We call this organization the Arrowhead
Pride Alliance so that it will not be identified or possessed by just one community or group of people in one particular area, region or city.
It is our hope that our new name will avoid taking on old identities of the past through association with familiar geographic names. The Arrowhead Alliance wants to become a new resource, in a new area bounded together by
these new roads, and most importantly by all of it’s new LGBT people. We live in area where over 90,000 new homes have been built since 1999, and in a Valley of new growth that is pointed to by a the historical landmark,
naturally formed, called the Arrowhead landmark. The Arrowhead
landmark is visible on the side of the San Bernardino Mountains. We
also want to become more visible and hope that this historical landmark will
also point to new Alliances of unity in the LGBT Community in the region
under and near it's point. .
The Arrowhead
Pride Alliance of the Inland Empire LGBT
Community is a group of Professionals who care about making a difference.
We are forming a solid group of professionals who choose to stand up against those who wish to take away or deny us the same rights everyone should enjoy. The Arrowhead
Pride Alliance is a group for LGBT people who are lawyers, teachers,
educators, medical professionals, law enforcement and emergency personnel, public administrators, retail, food and corporate managers as well as small business owners teaming to use their professional skills,
talents, employment experience, networking skills and training to make this area a better place for our LGBT brothers and sisters.
We invite all professionals, self employed business people, and those
employed in the business and government fields to join our ranks.
It was once said that there is no greater call than the service of others.
The Arrowhead Alliance of the Inland Empire is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgendered Service group for this area.
A Look Back to help us look forward……and some perspective
Grand Central, Arlos, The Stagedoor, The Skylark,
LiL’s, North 40, Tradewinds, The Robyn’s Nest, 3rd Rock, Your Place, The Planet, and Primetime are all familiar names to local LGBT natives in this area. Speaking their names brings fond memories to many who visited these primarily LGBT establishments. All of these places are gone—some distant memories, some not so distant, and one reincarnated as the Lark.. One thing is for sure, they are proof that times change. If one asks the twenty something visitors at the new Out and About Coffeehouse in Rancho Cucamonga about these names you will probably get a blank stare. To think that in 1987, if you asked someone at Grand Central to give directions to Rancho Cucamonga you would have gotten the same blank stare, and a sure fired response of “Where?” Now Rancho Cucamonga has a population of 165,000
where only grape fields existed less than ten years ago.
In the late 80’s & early 90’s there was a one-two punch to a thriving Gay Community in the Inland Empire.
A dreaded plague called HIV/AIDS introduced itself, and took it’s toll firmly. Congress decided to cut defense spending in this
area, and with it went Norton, March & Edwards Air Force Bases, and a huge amount of LGBT armed forces too. “My parking lot used to look like a Department of Defense lot with all the military parking stickers on the cars,” chuckles Jerry Brown, former owner of Grand Central. Brown saw his business cut by nearly two-thirds, and its eventual end with those base closures. This all coupled with a bad economy, and a blighted San Bernardino County economy brought about a dramatic decrease in the LGBT Community in the area. , With the advent of the internet, came chat rooms, and instant messaging and Gays and Lesbians had an alternative to Gay Bars to meet each other. This eventually brought about the closure of the area’s only Gay and Lesbian Center as well. The truth is for a while, it looked like the community might be permanently dormant.
However, a new day has dawned in this area, and the rainbow flag is starting to wave again.
With the rapid changes in the area, technology, and the addition of nearly 2 million people in the past three years so has the LGBT population boomed as well. “I meet new LGBT people all the time that have just moved into the area, and they are looking for a center, they have never heard of a place called the Lark, and in general—they are pretty much out of the loop, “ says Josh Overton, one of the new founders of the new Gay and Lesbian Alliance, called GALA, in the area.
Looking forward, the Arrowhead Pride Alliance hopes to once again provide a base of unity
and leadership to our community to be supportive of other LGBT organizations, provide education to both the LGBT and the Community at large regarding issues of concern to the LGBT Community. We seek to evaluate the community’s needs and help to bridge the gap between services needed and those offered.
Now……Make no mistakes about it, with all of these statements, the Arrowhead
Alliance also wants to provide excitement!
Let’s face it…no one wants to live in a boring, lifeless or
mundane community. No wants to live In the recycled past either. The Arrowhead
Pride Alliance is all about meeting new people, and living in a bold, exciting and vibrant LGBT Community. We are OUT there, and we need to come together to be OUT and
PROUD. YOU are the key ingredient in this recipe. Take a moment to reflect on all the fun times, and fun people an organization like this helps you to meet. The Arrowhead
Pride Alliance can
provide an outlet to meet your needs as well as all those people and experiences you might miss if you are not involved.
So gather together your pride…and let’s put together a great event….have
some fun and make wonderful memories at the Inland Valley's first annual
Arrowhead Pride Alliance's Winter Pride Rally. Help support the Arrowhead
Pride Alliance’s goals and
missions….volunteer, tell your friends...get involved, and most
importantly.....attend!
Let’s
take back our Pride at the Inland Valley’s first annual LGBT Rally
in San Bernardino County. |
