The Marie Equi Center

Exciting news! We were chosen to participate in Willamette Week Give!Guide. The campaign starts November 1st and runs through December 31st. Give!Guide is an easy way for individuals to support their favorite nonprofits in and around Portland.

One of the perks of donating through G!G is the chance to win prizes like concert tickets, vacation getaways, and more on the Big Give Days. Donating $10 or more on Friday, November 1st will get you a chance at winning tickets to the Billie Eilish show on December 8th at the Moda Center, plus a one-night stay at the Jupiter NEXT hotel and a $100 gift card to Hey Love restaurant.

See more information at https://giveguide.org/nonprofits/the-equi-institute

We did a thing yesterday, y’all! 🎉 We’ve created a place where people can access peer support, systems navigation, gender-affirming care referrals, harm reduction resources, recovery support, and community-building opportunities. A place for workshops, recovery groups, and skill-sharing. A place where people who have felt pushed to the margins can come home.
And when we say “home,” we mean that deeply. For trans and q***r folks, home has often been something we’ve had to build ourselves. Many of us have been rejected or pushed out of traditional families and systems of support, so we’ve learned to choose and build our own families. This has always been a source of strength and resilience for our community. We know how to show up for one another. We know how to create home, and hope, with what we have. This center is a continuation of that legacy—a place that every person who steps through our doors can help shape and build.
This space is built around the concept of home because it’s a commitment that every person here will be seen, respected, and supported. Together, we are creating a space rooted in mutual aid and radical, collective care. ***rliberation

Marie Equi Center ‘a huge deal’ for supporting Portland’s LGBTQ+ community Friday marks National Coming Out Day but that’s not the only reason the LGBTQ+ community is celebrating in Portland.

In preparation for starting Day Center services, we’re asking our community for food donations! We’re specifically looking for microwavable meals and similarly non-perishable and single serve food donations. Donations can be dropped off at 4434 SE 25th Ave., Portland, OR 97202 Monday-Friday between 11a-5p.
[Image description: there is a rainbow-colored gradient backdrop, decorated with white wavy lines; in the center is a circular image that says “donate now”, which is surrounded by another circle of words: “non-perishable + snacks + microwave meals + food donations + canned foods”; on the bottom right corner is a circular logo with the words “The Marie Equi Center”.]

✨ The Marie Equi Center is looking for two volunteers for our Grand Opening event on October 11th. Would you like to help? Email us at [email protected] to sign up!

Thank you! ✨

🎉 The Marie Equi Center Grand Opening is Here!🎉

📅 Date: October 11th
🕓 Time: 4-7 PM
📍 Location: 4434 SE 25th Ave, Portland, OR 97202

Join us for ribbon cutting, center tours, a taco bar (thanks to ), non-alcoholic drinks, and a special speech from our Director Katie Cox. ✨

Accessibility:
🧏‍♀️ ASL interpreters
🌐 Spanish translators
♿️ ADA accessible

🦠 COVID Protocols:
Our new Covid protocols and policies (which will be going live on our website and posted separately soon) will be in full effect at this event. Masks will be required to enter the building. 😷
All staff including new hires will be trained in COVID policies by and .
There will also be color-coded lanyards to help Indi I ate individual comfort levels for social distancing and photography 🌈

We can’t wait to celebrate with you in this historic moment. Thank you for all of your support and keep your eyes peeled for more updates/posts. 👏🏼 ❤️

From Executive Director and Co-Founder Katie Cox: We left behind two empty offices at the this afternoon after almost a decade of providing trans and q***r health access here. While there have been ups and downs in this space, Q Center has been an important incubator for Equi over the years. They were our first fiscal sponsor and gave us the foundation for getting our own 501c3 status. Over the last 9 years, we have provided over 6,000 primary care appointments and over 3,000 peer support visits totalling to nearly 10,000 supportive visits for trans, q***r, intersex, and otherwise gender diverse Oregonians within the walls of Q Center. We have hosted and co-hosted over 20 community events here including a sexual health and wellness fair, ID clinics, shot clinics, gender affirming care training for medical professionals, supply distribution events, vaccine events, HIV/STI testing events, a Q***r Karaoke night, community listening sessions, gender affirming surgery info sessions, and many more. While our physical partnership is ending, our connection and history together lives on as we support each other in the next phases of our organizational growth. We are so grateful to have been held by Q Center as we’ve grown and are so excited to see the community impact we will make in our next decade and in our new space ✨ Thank you to everyone at Q Center and in Q Center’s history for your many years of partnership 🌈

Our first furniture installation is happening today! In true q***rdo fashion, we picked out pieces that pop with lots of color and even a little glitter ✨ we also made sure to pick out inclusive seating options that are accessible to larger bodies. We’re getting so excited to open this Center to our community! Keep an eye on our social pages and website for more updates and expect to hear about our grand opening date in October very soon 🦄 ***ringsocialservices

This is not an Equi event, so we don’t have additional information to share, but this looks like a fantastic educational opportunity that is put together with much intention.

[Image Description: This post is an update to Equis Covid policy making and accountability from a previous post on July 19th. The graphics are comprised of a background with a gradient going from yellow to red. With colorful graphics of masks on the bottom. And Marie Equi Centers logo in the top right corner. The graphics read the text below.]

We want to update the community on the steps we’ve been taking behind the scenes to make good on our promises around COVID protocols and community repair & accountability. Please refer to our post from July 19th for context.

We have formed an internal group at Equi where members have been creating and making progress on our COVID Safety Action Plan. We have identified tasks and point people, and are in the process of finalizing timelines for logistics, repair, and accountability.

Updates and Plans:

1.) Our Policies.
We have had a series of staff wide discussions and small group discussions about developing and formalizing our COVID policies, (including mask requirement policies) for inside in The Day Center, at events, and for staff. Once it has been finalized we will be posting it on our socials, sending it out in our newsletter and keeping it on our website.

2.) Staff Trainings.
As we know from our mistakes, policies are only a starting point and are only as strong as they are enforceable. Access intimacy takes consistent care and intention. As such, we are working with COVID Safer PDX on developing and taking a training for Equi staff to feel more confident in enforcing our mask requirements and also disrupting ableism more broadly in the context of the pandemic.

3.) Repair.
We’ve asked BIRCH (Black, Indigenous, Racialized COVID Health) and COVID Safer PDX the best way to donate. We are finalizing the amounts to be donated with our Finance Director.
We’ve reached out to the person who took an hour long bus ride to our event, only to leave upon seeing unmasked attendees. We asked if we could get them a bus pass, and they said they were good.

Continued in comments…

[Image Description] (The first graphic has a gradient background turning blue from the left to yellow on the right. There is a purple and yellow flower icon in the bottom right corner. It reads that The Marie Equi Center is hiring for a Certified Recovery Mentor position. And that all applications close on August 15th. There is more information on our website linked below. The second slide has the same gradient background. But says, “We value candidates from an array of diverse educational, ethnic, racial, economic, gender and cultural backgrounds. We acknowledge hiring practices in this country have been historically exclusive and we are actively working to counteract that. “)

✨ We’re Hiring! ✨
Are you interested in working with us and becoming a Certified Recovery Mentor? Read more and apply through the link in our bio.

Salary: $23-$26/hr

Job Type: Full time, 32-40 hrs/week

Progressive benefits include:
- Paid self-care time each week
- 6 floating holidays per year
- 2 weeks of flexible PTO, 2 scheduled weeks of PTO after Pride Season and during the last week of the year
- Sick leave
- Flexible schedule
- 401k matching (full time)
- Health, vision, dental (full time)
- Monthly Wellness Stipend

Visit www.marieequi.center/careers to apply

Thank you!

[Image Description] (The first graphic has a gradient background turning blue from the left to yellow on the right. There is a pink heart and blue pill icon in the bottom right corner. It reads that The Marie Equi Center is hiring for a Community Health Worker position. And that all applications close on August 15th. There is more information on our website linked below. The second slide has the same gradient background. But says, “We value candidates from an array of diverse educational, ethnic, racial, economic, gender and cultural backgrounds. We acknowledge hiring practices in this country have been historically exclusive and we are actively working to counteract that. “)

✨ We’re Hiring! ✨
Do you want to become one of our Community Health Workers? Are you interested in working with our incredible team?

Salary: $23-$26/hr

Job Type: Full time, 32-40 hrs/week

Progressive benefits include:
- Paid self-care time each week
- 6 floating holidays per year
- 2 weeks of flexible PTO, 2 scheduled weeks of PTO after Pride Season and during the last week of the year
- Sick leave
- Flexible schedule
- 401k matching (full time)
- Health, vision, dental (full time)
- Monthly Wellness Stipend

Visit www.marieequi.center/careers to apply

Thank you!

[Image Description: 6 slides with graphics that have a background with a gradient. The gradient fades from orange/yellow on the left to green on the right. The graphics show an apology and accountability letter on behalf of The Marie Equi Center acknowledging their mistake on not enforcing masks at their last event and soft opening. The entirety of the letter is below in this caption and continued in the pinned comments.]

Dear Community,
We recently hosted our soft opening and community mural event last Saturday, July 13th. At the request of community members, we advertised the event as being masks-required. However, on the day of the event, we completely failed to enforce this standard. This effectively made the event inaccessible and high-risk for all community members, especially disabled, immunocompromised, and COVID-conscious folks.
We at Equi are deeply sorry for our failure to uphold this standard of care. We are determined to be accountable for our actions and inactions and move forward with more care and intention.
Our actions and inactions directly harmed and alienated disabled, immunocompromised, and COVID conscious community members, while also putting our attendees and broader community in harm’s way. We also acknowledge the unique harm of exclusion coming from an org like ours.
We know that folks were stoked to participate in a community-building event that was explicitly COVID safer and COVID safer events are far and few between. We failed. We betrayed a core tenet of radical organizing: disability justice. We went back on our word and understand that this mistake has led community members to distrust us.
This negligence communicates that inclusion is not a priority, that the most marginalized of our communities are an afterthought. We at Equi will move forward by repairing the harm and distrust that we caused as well as creating policies to prevent this from happening again.

(continued in comments)

[Image Description; The first graphic has a gradient background turning blue from the left to yellow on the right. There is a purple chair icon in the bottom right corner. It reads that The Marie Equi Center is hiring for a Peer Services Coordinator position. And that all applications close on July 30th. There is more information on our website linked below. The second slide has the same gradient background. But says, “We value candidates from an array of diverse educational, ethnic, racial, economic, gender and cultural backgrounds. We acknowledge hiring practices in this country have been historically exclusive and we are actively working to counteract that. “]

✨ We’re Hiring! ✨
Do you have case management experience? Are you interested in working with our incredible team of peers? We’re hiring for a Peer Services Coordinator to support our peer team with connecting clients to the support and resources they need the most. Read more and apply through the link in our bio.

Please follow the link below to apply:
https://www.marieequi.center/careers/peer-services-coordinator-2024

Thank you!

[Image Description; The first graphic has a gradient background turning blue from the left to yellow on the right. There is a unicorn icon in the bottom right corner. It reads that The Marie Equi Center is hiring for a Program Director position. And that all applications close on July 30th. There is more information on our website through our profile bio. The second slide has the same gradient background. But says, “We value candidates from an array of diverse educational, ethnic, racial, economic, gender and cultural backgrounds. We acknowledge hiring practices in this country have been historically exclusive and we are actively working to counteract that. “]

✨ We’re Hiring! ✨

We’re looking for a new Program Director, preferably someone with experience in a relevant position. Please apply through our website at https://www.marieequi.center/careers/program-director-2024-ktjwe .

Thank you!

We’re ready for tomorrow! Paint is organized, brushes are out, drop cloths are down, outline is stenciled 🎨 we can’t wait to see you there 🌈👨‍🎨👩‍🎨🧑‍🎨💫

🌈 Volunteer with Equi at Portland Pride! 🌈

This year, Equi is excited to be tabling and passing out resources at the Portland Pride Festival and the Trans Rally & March! 🏳️‍🌈

Both events will take place during the weekend of Saturday, July 20th and Sunday, July 21st. We are in need of passionate volunteers for both days.

If you’re interested in volunteering with us, please sign up below. Let’s come together to support our community and celebrate Pride! 💪❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B44AFA823A0FCC61-50141502-equi #

Hello beautiful people! It’s the first day of June/Pride and we’re coming out with a whole new look. 👀

Thanks to our amazing designer Dustin we are excited to show you our new logo, website and overall aesthetic. Go check out our new website and here’s a link to his incredible work. 😉

https://www.crossfade.co/?utm_source=equi-website

We can’t wait to share some big news with you as well this Pride. So stay connected here on Facebook or sign-up for our newsletter that’s rolling out soon!
❤️ 🌈

We are growing! We’re looking for a Financial Director at Equi to help us continue to grow.

BRIEF: The Financial Director will develop and execute Equi’s financial policy, accounting, and reporting through a comprehensive fiscal plan and budget. The director works closely with the board, Executive Director, and staff to ensure high levels of accountability, excellence, and transparency in all things financial for the organization. The Financial Director is also meant to develop forward-thinking strategies, policies, and budgets that ensure that Equi’s operations are maintained and sustainable. We are accepting applications for this position until May 24th, 2024.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TO APPLY: check out our linktree in our bio, or look at the Financial Director job posting on our website at equi-institute.org/job-opportunities

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Let us know by commenting below or messaging us.

We also would love a boost, so if you can, PLEASE SHARE!

It’s finally here! Our annual Harm Reduction Fair is tomorrow from 2-6pm at .

Thank you to all of our partners and incredible people for making tomorrow happen. And for working so fiercely to serve our communities/our city. 🫂 ❤️

We wanted to take a moment to not only remind you but highlight two out of many we are honored to share space with tomorrow. 💕

Please check them all out and show as much support as you can. We look forward to seeing all of you and being in community with you very soon! Thank you!

Good afternoon beautiful people! Our Harm Reduction Fair is coming up this Saturday at 🌈 ✨

We are so excited to be of service to all of you! What does Harm Reduction mean to you?