At the Esperanza Center’s LGBTQ+ Youth Resource Center you might find attendees painting their own happy little clouds while watching Bob Ross videos, cutting words and images from magazines as they work on a group collage, planning the upcoming Pride event in June, or just sitting around and talking in a place where they feel safe and involved.
“Here, nobody is judged, and everyone is free to engage with each other and enjoy themselves,” said Louise Coombes, the center’s Mental Health Services Act coordinator. “These are just normal people trying to live their lives, and coming here can help them get over some of the emotional distress they may have to deal with, for whatever reason, living in this community.”
At the heart of this safe space in downtown Hollister is a group of mentors, uncredentialed peer counselors who provide support based on what they have learned from having been in similar situations themselves.
Hollister resident Dylan Yearton, 19, who has been a peer mentor for around 16 months, said he began coming to the center after being introduced to it by his partner. He applied for the mentoring job a few weeks later, partly out of a desire to find work that had a purpose.
“I found that there was a position here where I could be helping the queer community in San Benito and in my city,” he said. “I thought then—and I was right—that I would enjoy this more than if I were working somewhere else with no purpose. As counselors, we are here to make sure people are heard, offer them advice if we can, and provide them a place they are comfortable with.”
According to Yearton, Hollister can be a difficult place for LGBTQ+ youths to meet, or find resources that they might need.
“Many people growing up queer don’t meet another person who’s openly queer during their whole upbringing,” he said. “The center can be really helpful in that way because it eliminates a lot of the confusion that kind of isolation entails and gives them someone to talk to. And as a counselor, we can connect them with a doctor or with Behavioral Health if they have any kind of mental health or home life issues.”
The center currently has 15 to 20 regular visitors, though there is a steady stream of drop-in guests as well.
“We have some people who will come here to see what it’s like and then get a little anxious and not come again,” Yearton said. “And that’s normal. But most of the people who come here who want to have a conversation and want to engage with us do come back.”
Some of the youths are seeking an escape from the pressures of their lives, and Yearton said they come to the center so that they don’t have to be home.
“Even if their parents or family or household isn’t outright homophobic, it doesn’t always feel comfortable when people look at you differently,” he said. “Here, you have members of your community who won’t act like that.”
Pedro Prado, 25, worked with mentors when he first came to the center and has now taken the steps to become a mentor himself.
“The first time I came here, I was immediately greeted by them,” he said. “Their first concern was whether I was having a good time, and they told me, ‘I hope you know that we’re here for you.’ I had trouble with really bad anxiety, and they did have really good suggestions for me. I feel like each of them has their own experience on certain things, and they give you advice based on that.”
The mentors have also been helping the city revise its “friendly workplace training manual,” which has not been updated since it was written in 2011.
“The concept of it was amazing,” Yearton said. “I was glad to see that it existed in the first place. But the studies they used and all of the terms were outdated. So it’s not an exaggeration to say we added hundreds of sticky notes. But it’s going to be passed out to every employee in the city to educate them on issues and how to be an ally.”
But even with support from the city and the safety of the Esperanza Center, 19-year-old mentor Camila Barker Celador said it is still quite a scary time to be an openly queer person in the United States, saying, “I see being a peer mentor here as part of my way of making this area a slightly better place to be. I hope, if nothing else, that people leave knowing that they are not alone and that they’re not the only queer person in this entire town.”
The LGBTQ+ Youth Resource Center, located at 544 San Benito Street in Hollister, is open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays and from noon. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. The Adult LGBTQ+ Group meets from noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.
On Tuesday, April 18, the Poppy Jasper Festival will be celebrating LGBTQ+ Day by showing three blocks of LGBTQ+ films at the Granada Theater in Hollister.