An early artist’s rendering of the new center on Cedar Springs and Inwood roads.
The Harold Simmons Foundation donated $600,000 to the Resource Center’s capital campaign, center officials announced Tuesday.
Serena Simmons Connelly, director of philanthropy for the Harold Simmons Foundation, said that this is the only large gift ever made by the Harold Simmons Foundation to an LGBT cause beyond supporting HIV/AIDS.
She added this gift “takes it to a different realm of basic human rights of our gay and lesbian fellow citizens. I feel hopeful about Resource Center being a place for families and the issues of youth and seniors – a place where people move into a healthy life.”
Resource Center CEO Cece Cox said in a statement that “the generous investment from the Harold Simmons Foundation moves us closer to ensuring that LGBT youth have a space free from bullying, that families and seniors are supported, and that persons living with HIV are cared for.”
Resource Center demolished a strip mall on the corner of Cedar Springs and Inwood roads last April for the new building.
The original cost of the building was $12 million, but decreasing the size of the new facility lowered the cost. Cox said $5 million of the $8.7 million goal has been raised and groundbreaking is planned for January 2015.
For more information on the capital campaign, contact Chief Development Officer Cameron Hernholm at 214-540-4421 or chernholm@myresourcecenter.org.
