CAMP Rehoboth Community Center welcomes Kim Leisey as its New Executive Director.
CAMP is a nonprofit serving the needs of LGBTQ+ people across Delaware. It provides wraparound services, community programming, and advocacy.
Leisey comes to the position after working in Student Affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for three decades.
She says working in a community center and working in student affairs are similar.
“Part of my training is about how to develop community, and bring people into community, in a way that they can find their niche and their tribe, and find ways that they themselves feel comfortable and can be authentic. So in that way, a transition to CAMP Rehoboth Community Center makes sense. It's just the population is different.”
CAMP was founded 33 years ago by Murray Archibald and Steve Elkins, and Leisey says she experienced the impact of their leadership firsthand in the 90s.
“Rehoboth was a place where I found safety, and it was because of CAMP,” said Leisey.
She says it was clear that Archibald and Elkins operated from a place of love, compassion, and care.
“And I deeply believe that our life should be our message. And Murray and Steve’s lives… their message is loud and clear through this building, this community, the people I’ve met who have been touched by them. And I want to continue that,” she explained.
CAMP was founded at the heels of the gay liberation movement, a roughly 20-year period characterized by LGBTQ+ folks fighting for equality.
Leisey says a lot of progress has been made since then, but many of the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community in the past persist today.
For example, many queer people have been coming out at younger ages. But the fear of coming out, and being their authentic selves out in the world, remains.
Leisey wants to help to continue to fight prejudice in the Delaware community.
“The most powerful place to be is out,” said Leisey. “When we are out, and when we are out in the community, and celebrating our gifts and talents, when someone meets and talks with us, and they get to know someone who's trans or gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever they identify as, they realize ‘you know what this is a human being’ very early on.”
Leisey began her tenure as Executive Director on July 10th, 2023.
