JoMoEq provides support for Joplin’s mass of LGBT teens

by Sara Ritsch
Staff Writer

Joplin, Missouri was faced with an issue: teens were coming out. They were coming out of the closet in flocks; their youngest member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community was only 12, and the kids needed support. But where could they go?

If it were the late 1990s or early 2000s, they would have had a home-away-from-home, a sanctuary. But that safe space closed down. The LGBT community in Joplin even had to travel for Pride, which has only been finally established in their town for four years now. But from that lack of resources, there came a high demand for a center or group to help these teens come out.

“Historically, the LGBT community in Joplin has been disconnected. Older people don’t agree with the younger people, nobody gets along. So we came together and were like, ‘OK, young kids are coming out and literally have no one to support them. It’s our role as a community.’ So the overall agreement was, we need a safe place for kids to be supported and loved and to talk about what’s happening in the world,” says Mackenzie Garst, co-founder of Joplin, Missouri Equality (JoMoEq). “So we rented out the back of a coffee shop and we meet there twice a month now.”

On the second Monday of every month, JoMoEq meets at Joplin Avenue Coffee Company for Health Education and Resource Team (HEART) meetings. They bring in guest speakers from the community to provide resources, such as suicide prevention training or how to write letters to legislators.

“We bring in a local lady who has worked at the state level for years to talk about bills in Missouri that affect the LGBT community and effective ways to talk to legislature. By the end of the meeting, we’ll have a final copy of a letter to send out,” Garst says.

“We’re excited about that because people attending have voiced an interest in advocacy work, which wasn’t our original intention – it’s more of a support group feel – but people want education.”

On the fourth Thursday of every month, JoMoEq maintains a general support group meeting. They pick a topic of the month that is affecting their local community, breaking into small groups for discussion. This month, August 25 marks their one-year anniversary.

“We started with six people in attendance. In nine or 10 months, we now average between 45 and 50 people per meeting. We’re growing...and growing quickly. Even our Pride count [in June] was over 1,000 people!”

Garst adds, “It’s important to be able to support our local kids. There are lots of suburbs and rural communities [outside of Joplin] where they try to navigate their journey, so our intention is to give them a safe place to go be themselves and bounce ideas off people, meet new people, gain support. I’ve honestly seen so many kids come out of the woodwork. The need is definitely there. It’s about reaching out and getting them to those meetings.”

As for the long-term, JoMoEq aims to have a centralized location, extra resources and to host events. But because they are not even a year old, it is still a distant thought. JoMoEq is always accepting donations to work towards these goals. Find out more about their small but ever-expanding community on Facebook at Jo Mo Eq – Joplin Equality.

Copyright 2016 The Gayly – August 25, 2016 @ 9:35 a.m.