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Written by Peggy Schulz, Contributing writer
Aug 12, 2011
LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin board member Mare Wheeler and executive director Jolie McKenna. – Photo: Sabrina Gillis
The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin opened a little over two years ago, but it’s already engaged in ambitious plans for the future. Members say the positive momentum is due largely to the enthusiastic leadership of Jolie McKenna, the center’s executive director.
According to members, McKenna is notable for her unswerving commitment, for reaching out to expand the center’s audience and activities, and for being the only transgender woman at the helm of any LGBT center in the United States.
Bruce Joffe founded the center in Racine out of his own money, McKenna says.
“He bought the building, furnished the building, took it through the zoning process, fighting city hall, everything,” McKenna says. “He truly got the place running.”
Joffe moved to Florida in April 2010, just one year after the center opened. In the interim, two of the center’s board members met McKenna and immediately decided she should be the next executive director.
McKenna, who has a master’s in administrative leadership in adult education, worked for many years in corrections, including as a parole officer. Prior to being hired as executive director of the center, she ran an employment program there called Moonlighting.
“Michael (Dobrowski), the board president and his husband, Steven – they literally came in one day and before I knew it, I was offered the position,” McKenna says.
As the only paid staff person at the center, McKenna covers its 37 walk-in hours per week. She also runs a number of support groups over and above the walk-in hours.
Fortunately for the center, McKenna has been successful in recruiting volunteers.
“We’re lucky,” she says. “People just want to be part of what we’re doing. They’re really, really good, dedicated, smart people with a lot of skills.”
At the end of July, the LGBT center completed the “CAN Works” program sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside Center for Community Partnerships. CAN stands for Capacity-building Assistance for Nonprofits. McKenna is wildly enthusiastic about the results.
“It has been a huge advantage for us, gotten us plugged in to the community in a way we just couldn’t have done on our own,” she says. The CAN program is funded by federal stimulus dollars to help non-profit organizations increase their ability to serve their constituents.
The LGBT Center also received $30,000 of funding through the CAN program. Those funds paid for consultant Joan Eklund Jacobs to work with the center on board development and creating a strategic plan.
Jacobs is the principal consultant of Chrysalis Solutions, LLC, which works to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations. She also is a board member of the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.
After all the planning and analysis, the initial focus for 2012 will be to expand programming for youth and the elderly, McKenna says.
“We’re going to develop and present safe zone training,” she says, referring to a nationally known LGBT diversity program for institutions.
The center provides basic services on up.
“I have two, three, four people a week come in, homeless, kicked out of their houses, or new to the community,” McKenna says. Some of them are young people who have come out and been rejected by their families, she adds.
The center also helps people with employment issues and those who are generally trying to succeed in the world.
“We talk about safety and run support groups,” she says.
On the next level are the community events, which the center has “kicked out of the park,” as McKenna puts it.
“We build community,” she says. “Then, finally, we try to celebrate our history, our fulfillment of our contribution to society.”
In addition to UW-Parkside, the Siena Center, which is run by Dominican nuns, has supported the LGBT center.
“They have bent over backwards, they recognize the social justice implications of what we’re trying to do and have really welcomed us into the community,” McKenna says. “We’re hoping to develop program ties with them.”
“Michael’s vision, when I was hired (was) to see all ages, all stages, from the cradle to the grave, receive some type of services,” McKenna says.
It would seem that Dobrowski’s vision has so far been more than fulfilled by McKenna.
