Encircle’s plans for LGBTQ facility in Ogden garnering support, backers say
Taylor Knuth addresses a gathering on Thursday, June 17, 2021, outside the Eccles Art Center in Ogden on plans to build an Encircle facility in the city geared to the LGBTQ community. He serves on the Ogden Encircle Advisory Board.
Kathryn Hueth addresses a gathering on Thursday, June 17, 2021, outside the Eccles Art Center in Ogden on plans to build an Encircle facility in the city geared to the LGBTQ community. She leads the Ogden Encircle Advisory Board.
OGDEN — When her son first came out to her as gay, Kathryn Hueth didn’t know where to turn.
She didn’t tell her husband, abiding by her son’s wishes. It was the mid-2000s and there weren’t any organizations in Ogden that she could discern that could offer support. “There was absolutely nothing. … I was ultimately just alone for 10 years or so,” she said, as her son sorted through the issue.
Things have since stabilized — her son has married and is thriving, she said. But still, she knows others face the uncertainty and anguish she and her son did and, as chairperson of the Ogden Encircle Advisory Board, it’s become her mission to do what she can to help the LGBTQ community. “I want everybody to be living a beautiful, full life. That is the end purpose to all of this,” she said.
To that end, she offered up her story on Thursday at an event meant to spread the word about Encircle, which will be building a facility in Ogden to serve as a haven and resource center for the LGBTQ community. Encircle leaders, seeking financial support, also made a pitch for donations as the launch of construction on the planned facility at 2458 Washington Blvd. looms. Some $320,000 has been raised so far, said Stephenie Larsen, the Encircle chief executive officer, and Hueth said the response from the Ogden area since Encircle plans here emerged has been positive.
TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner
A gay pride flag hangs outside the Eccles Art Center in Ogden. Reps from Encircle addressed a gathering on Thursday, June 17, 2021, outside the facility on plans to build an Encircle facility in the city geared to the LGBTQ community.
“All good. It’s phenomenal. … People were passionate about being involved to a fault,” Hueth said. Encircle reps held a groundbreaking ceremony at the Washington Boulevard site late last March and Larsen, who also spoke Thursday, hopes work on the red-brick facility can begin in earnest next month, with a tentative completion date in the spring of 2022.
Around 100 people attended Thursday’s “Getting to Know Encircle” event, held outside the Eccles Art Center in Ogden, including Utah Rep. Rosemary Lesser, Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey and Ogden City Councilperson Marcia White. Encircle, a nonprofit that launched in 2017, currently has facilities in Provo, Salt Lake City and St. George.
Encircle’s services are geared to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning communities and their family members, and the focus Thursday was on the planned offerings here.
“We all have stories and it is in the sharing of those stories that we connect with one another,” Hueth said. Encircle is a place where the personal stories of the LGBTQ community can be told, she went on, thus serving as a “lifeline” to them.
More generally, Larsen said Encircle facilities are meant to be safe spaces for the LGBTQ community, offering a place where they can get support and therapy, forge friendships and more. “You walk into an Encircle home and it’s laughter, happiness. … It’s built by the community, for the community. I think that love — you feel it in the walls in the homes,” she said.
TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner
Stephenie Larsen addresses a gathering on Thursday, June 17, 2021, outside the Eccles Art Center in Ogden on plans to build an Encircle facility in the city geared to the LGBTQ community. Larsen is chief executive officer of Encircle.
Taylor Knuth, a member of the Ogden Encircle Advisory Board, spoke of his coming out. He didn’t have a facility like Encircle to turn to for support when he was growing up and suspects life “would’ve been filled with a bit more companionship and community” had such an organization been around.
Encircle received a series of high-profile donations earlier this year worth $4 million from Apple, the Cupertino, California-based technology company; Utah Jazz owners Ryan and Ashley Smith; and Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds. That money will help with construction of the Ogden facility and others.
