North Pride Revitalizes Traverse City Building as Community Center

A New Home for Up North Pride in Traverse City

In Traverse City, Michigan, a local organization focused on supporting the LGBTQ+ community has found a new and meaningful place to call home. Up North Pride, an organization dedicated to promoting safety, pride, and inclusivity, has transformed an old building on 8th Street into a vibrant community hub. This new space marks a significant milestone for the group, which has long sought a permanent location to better serve its members and the broader community.

Adrienne Brown-Reasner, the executive director of Up North Pride, shared her excitement about the new facility. “The first time walking in before we really took it over and started thinking about what it could be, it was just so overwhelmingly wonderful,” she said. The building, once a copy shop, still retains some of its past features, including an array of unusual electrical outlets. Aaron Wright, the board president of Up North Pride, noted that the space is full of surprises. “This copy shop has so many different types of plugs. I’m not kidding you. I’ve seen plugs that I have never even heard of before.”

For over a decade, Up North Pride has been working to support the LGBTQ+ community, often relying on borrowed spaces for meetings and events. “We’ve always known that having a space was sort of the primary directive,” Wright explained. “That was our main mission was to be visible and present in the community in a literal sense.” Before this new location, the organization had to move between businesses, public spaces, or even people’s homes. “To be able to dictate exactly when and where we do something and what that something is is really powerful for an organization like this.”

The new space allows Up North Pride to host events and build a sense of community without needing to seek permission or favors. Brown-Reasner emphasized the importance of the space, saying, “What we’re really doing is helping build that community feeling, again that sense of I have someone here, I have friends I can turn to, I can make friends or I can go somewhere and feel welcomed as who I am and not have to adapt to that is or answer questions about who that is and just really, truly be embraced for who I personally identify as and know that that is 100% okay and welcomed with the space that we’re in.”

The organization is currently working on a list of projects and seeking donated items, while planning a calendar full of events to be held in their new space. Brown-Reasner added, “It’s just our community here. It’s just the people who are coming for this and they can 100% just relax and be themselves. Just to watch someone do that, you can literally see the relief in their shoulders as they walk through the door and be like, ‘This is where I can be myself,’ and that’s a that’s expected for me to just be myself.”

Wright believes the new space enriches the community. “I think that it adds to the fabric of the community. It creates a larger and more colorful quilt of what our community is, who’s invited to it, who’s welcomed to it, and who belongs in it.”

Up North Pride invites everyone to visit, meet, learn, and form new friendships. They humorously noted that any new friends who happen to be electricians would be especially appreciated.