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After the Games

Leaders See Energized Community as Gay Games Legacy

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by Bob Vitale and Noah Flora

Tom Nobbe looked around Trinity Episcopal Cathedral at the start of a training session for Gay Games volunteers. More than 200 people future airport greeters, sign-in monitors, people-herders and directionsgivers-packed the room.

"They truly were from all walks of life," the Games' executive director said of the gathering, one of four during July to give volunteers the low-down on hosting an international event.

"Straight folks, gay folks, black, white, suburban, city, college kids and some folks who clearly were up there in years and they all were going to get to know each other. The Gay Games is one of those events that occurs that brings people together."

In a region where LGBT residents are more likely to live near family than family, where there's plenty of gay-friendly places but no true gayborhood, there's hope that years of planning and a week in the spotlight will leave behind a more active and visible LGBT community.

Phyllis Harris, executive director of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, said conversation about the Gay

24 august 2014

Games' legacy often focuses on their economic impact, but she thinks the Games also have acted as a catalyst for partnerships among groups that have been unaffiliated until now.

Already, an estimated 1,000 Gay Games participants who play in softball, volleyball, billiards, bowling and other sports leagues have come together under a Team Cleveland banner, which will stick around to promote LGBT participation in sports. The group also lists goals that include scholarships for LGBT student-athletes.

And while others have talked about the Games' ability to show off Northeast Ohio to the rest of the world as an LGBT-friendly place to live, work and spend money, Harris said she thinks the event has brought LGBT issues to the forefront for local lead-

ers.

Harris said she has taught LGBT cultural competency information to help people interact with the community and its people -to Northeast Ohio businesses and community agencies in advance of the Gay Games.

In May, the Cleveland Foundation awarded a grant to fund a new Cleveland-based regional coordinator for Equality Ohio, the statewide LGBT civil-rights group.

In Akron, the Community AIDS Network/Akron Pride Initiative also has helped educate the broader community about serving and working with LGBT people. Executive Director Rebecca Callahan said she hopes it will help the Games show Akron and Ohio as diverse and inclusive.

The Games will leave a more tangible legacy as well.

The Cleveland Foundation, a charitable organization that signed on as a $250,000 presenting sponsor in early 2013, will create a permanent fund once they're over to help LGBT community groups.

Money will be used for annual grants to groups such as the LGBT Center and others for programs and services. Similar funds

already exist in Columbus and Akron, where money has gone toward efforts such as an LGBT veterans support group and education about same-sex parenting for court advocates.

"It will help the Games be more than a single event," said Kaye Ridolfi, the foundation's senior vice president for advancement. She said Gay Games participants and spectators will be able to contribute to the new LGBT fund via text while they're in Northeast Ohio.

Go Browns!

But Todd Saporito, president and CEO of Flex Spas and the board president of Cleveland Pride, disagrees with the model for the Cleveland fund. Instead of spreading money around in small grants for a bunch of community priorities, he said, a better legacy for the Gay Games would be a significant effort to build a new home for the LGBT center.

"It would be something tangible, built as an icon, so the community could touch steel and feel like it's theirs," he said.

When the Federation of Gay Games awarded the 2014 Games to Cleveland over what was considered the gay-friendlier cities of Boston and Washington, the organization said hosting the event in Ohio had the possibility of changing people's perceptions of the LGBT community.

Nobbe said he thinks the Games already have accomplished that goal.

Another legacy, he said, is that they've also helped change the LGBT community's perception of itself.

"It will boost the self-esteem, the confidence, of the LGBT community here," he said.

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