A new HOME for the LGBTQ+ community in Pikeville

"All roads lead home" for an Eastern Kentucky entertainment space that will focus on inclusion, diversity, equity—and healing.

For generations of young Eastern Kentuckians, there’s been a din throughout the mountains and a thrumming in the ground that if they want to have a life of inclusivity, success and happiness they have to leave the region—ASAP. This has been particularly true for LGBTQ+ youth, who often can’t see a clear pathway toward community, let alone a public space created with them in mind.

And while there have been some phenomenal shifts over the past few years—including the launch of Big Sandy Safe Zone—a dedicate space for the LGBTQ+ community to join together, to relax, to just have a good time has still eluded the area. Until now.

Fresh off the heels of a highly successful Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $15K for the project, Laurel County-native Tasha Sams is building HOME: an LGBTQ+ arts and entertainment venue in in Pikeville. “Centered around community,” Sams writes, “HOME aims to provide space for unique dining experiences, a celebration of the arts, and evening and weekend entertainment.”

Sams is eloquent and passionate when speaking about HOME’s future, and I’m excited to share our recent conversation below. Read on to learn more about HOME’s inspiration, Pikeville as a new “little Lexington” and plans to bring some top-notch German food (!) to Pike County.

We’ll be back tomorrow for subscribers only with insights from Big Sandy Safe Zone founder and therapist Kyle May about his recently-opened practice in Prestonsburg and LGBTQ+ mental health in Eastern Kentucky. Feeling generous? How about giving someone a little present to help make it through the dog days of summer:

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Sarah Baird: Tell me a little bit about where you were raised in Eastern Kentucky.
Tasha Sams: I grew up in Laurel County, and it was not the easiest journey to grow up there as someone who's part of the LGBTQ community. There was a lot of othering; a lot of bigotry and hate woven into that experience; a lot of unnecessary trauma. And what's wild is that's not a singular story. Mine is very similar to the hundreds of thousands of others who've experienced the same sort of journey growing up in Eastern Kentucky.

When I turned 16, I earned my driver’s license, and I did what I think everyone does in that situation: I sought out community. I found that community in Knoxville, and Lexington, and Louisville, and Huntington, West Virginia, but nowhere in the 54 counties that we think of as Eastern Kentucky. It didn’t feel safe, I guess, to have that community there.

When I turned 18, I immediately moved away, and I found happiness and a chosen family elsewhere. Again, that's not, unfortunately, a unique narrative. Now I'm that in my thirties, I feel like the last 10 years have really worked to shine a light on this new vision for the [LGBTQ community] in Eastern Kentucky and point not just to the possibility of it, but really the need for it.

SB: Was there a “lightbulb” moment for you that helped pave the way for HOME?
TS: In my current role, I work through the lens of economic development. This means that I’m always making connections between the constant lack of workforce and the constant need to fill jobs in Eastern Kentucky, paired with the constant message to “uplift that region.” And eventually I was like, “My goodness, well, if you filter out all the diversity, that's never going to happen.” I feel like that has been what's happened, and that's not making any generalization, of course…but as a whole, it is a trend that’s easily mapped by data.

I just recognize that, without diversity, you cannot have innovation. And when you limit who can participate, you limit which problems can be solved. It became obvious to me that there's not only a need for an influx of diversity and an influx of people with different ideas and backgrounds and experiences, but even more disheartening is that those people already existed here. And the forceful removal of them, whether it's passive aggressive or aggressive, is essentially linked to that economic disparity that we see.

As soon as I started connecting those pieces, I was like, “I know the battle that I'm about to undertake. I recognize how wild this is, but it has to happen.” It took a long way to get here, but that's the inspiration behind HOME. It's a movement of healing; it's a movement of grace; it's a movement of welcoming; and it's really a movement to uplift Eastern Kentucky as a whole in the best way that I think I know how.

It’s also a movement to ensure that future generations who are part of the LGBTQ community don't have to leave to seek community: that they can have it there and have all the same opportunities as they would in Lexington or Louisville or whatever city you want name. That's why we're here. That's why we're doing what we're doing.

SB: I know you’re from Laurel County originally. Why is Pikeville your location of choice?
TS: Pikeville came to the forefront for a few reasons. If you look at Pikeville's growth, it is expanding at just a beautiful rate. I think some people are starting to call it “little Lexington.” I'm not sure how Pikeville feels about that, but they are growing in all the good ways when it comes to their economy.

Pikeville also is sort of, I don't think central is the word, but it's definitely an anchor for the region in terms of the amount of people that come through Pikeville.

Two years ago, I was living in Louisville, and one of my good friends said, “There’s going to be a [LGBTQ+] Pride event in Pikeville this weekend. I said, “There's going to be a what in Pikeville? I don't believe that. I've got to see this for myself.”

So, I drove to Pikeville, and I came around the corner— they have the cutest little downtown!—and sure enough, Pride was happening! It was a beautiful experience: there were a few hundred people there, and it was a great day of fun celebration. It was also an emotional experience because I just never, at least in my lifetime, thought I would see that happen in an Eastern Kentucky county or city. That's really when I started to think about Pikeville.

Pikeville is accepting and ready and welcoming. I think all of the economic indicators are there, and it's been really fun talking to a lot of the local leaders and working to bring this to life.

SB: What’s the vision for HOME as a gathering space?
TS: It's going to be so much more than a physical space, but obviously, the arts and entertainment component is the emphasis. In five years, I want HOME to be a place that everyone knows they are welcome and where we uplift artists of all kinds. We're going to wrap our arms around the drag community and do whatever we can to make that a huge part of this vision, but I'm also very interested in hosting singer-songwriters and uplifting voices of color—really doing what we can to shine a light on diversity. I want to not only be recognized as a super inclusive venue, but the equity piece of it is so important for us right now. There's so much work to be done.

We're also excited to add in a culinary component. My partner is originally from Massachusetts at the top of Appalachian Mountains, so we have a unique cultural difference, but also kind of the same. I mean, the mountains up there are just a little colder. But her grandmother is from Germany—she's one step removed—and she passed on some really authentic German family recipes. Because of this, we’ll have a German-focus on the culinary side. I'm excited for that, too, because there aren't a lot of options when it comes to German food in the area. We're bringing that value to Pikeville as well.