At a time when diverse voices truly matter, The Center Coachella is making greater strides toward equity and full representation.
An East Valley extension of The Center (The LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert), the portal has found success being a safe and inclusive space for the LGBTQ+ community in East Coachella Valley. With its diverse programming and commitment to the LGBTQ+ community, the haven is now a valued resource, especially for LGBTQ+ youth in Coachella, Thermal, Mecca, and North Shore.
Miguel Navarro, Director of East Coachella Valley Programs at The Center Coachella, calls those younger individuals important change agents, people capable of creating a sea change in the East Valley.
It all filters into a diverse mix of offerings at The Center Coachella and Navarro is quick to express gratitude for community support and recent grants, like the one the organization recently received from Inland Empire Community Foundation through the FitzDell Gifting Fund.
“The grant funding allows us to continue doing our work,” Navarro said. “It allows us to help LGBTQ+ folks who don’t have the easiest access to transportation to healthcare, resources, connection, and meeting other folks. We create our programming and engagement around that and give them access to all those resources.”
That can include anything and everything from the organization paying for transportation and/or making sure people have bus passes, especially younger individuals.
“The resources are vital,” Navarro added. “We have facilitators that will do workshops throughout the year or special invitations to therapists or other non-profit organizations that bring resources to our allies. It all connects.”
A recent East Valley Pride Festival in October stood out.
“It was a big celebration in Coachella, and we brought a full day of entertainment, resources, and vendors,” Navarro noted. “All that was supported by the grant.”
The Center itself is a kind of lighthouse in the East Valley with its resource center and community room that is open to support groups, meetings, small events, and other activities.
Navarro hope The Center Coachella will continue offering resources to LGBTQ+ individuals living in the East Valley, especially in those unincorporated areas—from Mecca to North Shore.
One local program close to Navarro’s heart is Mis Amores (My Loves), which serves parents and family members of Spanish-speaking LGBTQ+ people.
“A lot of the time, we don’t have enough literature and resources with Spanish terminology,” Navarro said. “It’s been mostly kept in English. There isn’t a lot of Spanish translation of what it means to be ‘gender expansive’ or what it means to be ‘nonbinary.’ There isn’t a lot of language around hormone therapy, so it takes a lot of time for all of that to be translated in Spanish. It takes lot of effort and research.”
To that end, The Center Coachella offers a support group twice a month for Spanish-speaking families and allies.
“We study and we bring education and knowledge to parents and grandparents who have never heard about any of these terms,” Navarro said. “And all those conversations happen in Spanish. If there isn’t something available, we have to translate it and present it to the folks who come.”
Over time, the initiative has become one of Navarro’s main priorities.
“I want to continue bringing more awareness around this because I know there’s a lot of farm-working parents and possibly undocumented parents, who have LGBTQ+ kids, and they may feel very alone and isolated,” he said. “When parents come for the first time, they often share that they never realized there was a center or a support group that would be culturally sensitive and it would be in Spanish.
“And that it would really cater to specific needs of farm-working people, undocumented people, and single mothers that don’t speak English,” he added.
He points out the importance of continually reaching out to as many parents as possible because the East Valley has a significant number of unincorporated communities.
“Those communities are some of the most underserved and under-resourced,” Navarro said. “Engagement is even more important for those communities. And even though we have an office in Coachella, I’ll tell you, if someone lives in Oasis or Mecca, it’s still at least 30 to 35 minutes to get to, so that becomes a challenge.
“In the new year, we’re going to be promoting Mis Amores as much as possible,” he added.
Learn more at thecentercv.org.
This story originally appeared in the Desert Sun, December 2025.
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