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This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.
For years, Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history has lived in fragments, scattered throughout the state.
Stories from the community have been found in shared memories, archives, temporary exhibits, small businesses, annual Pride events and community spaces.
Now, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective is trying to give that history a permanent home in the state’s largest city.
By the end of this year, the organization plans to open The Collective, a 3,200-square-foot facility on Market Street in downtown Wilmington. It would serve as an LGBTQ+ visitor center, museum, co-working space, and community hub.
Organizers say the project would create Delaware’s first queer history museum. It would also create the first brick-and-mortar LGBTQ+ community space in northern Delaware in over 35 years – following the closure of the Griffin Community Center in Wilmington.
Similar centers exist in Sussex County and Philadelphia.For Noah Duckett, co-founder of the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective, the space’s purpose feels vital. He emphasized that while there have been “incredible events” in Wilmington, there is not a single space “to showcase all of that in a permanent way.”
“It felt like now was the most important time to have a space that was created by us, created for us, that is not going to go away,” Duckett said.
Duckett’s plans come after LGBTQ+ rights were thrust into the center of national political debates amid President Donald Trump’s second term.
Since taking office, Trump issued an executive order to recognize two sexes – male and female. His administration also issued a string of directives and orders aiming to alter health care for transgender individuals by pulling federal dollars from hospitals nationally and in Delaware that provide gender-affirming care.
Meanwhile, some states and conservative groups have called for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old ruling, legalizing same-sex marriage.
Duckett said those government actions only increase the need to build a community center.
“We have sponsors that are pulling away, we have hospitals and agencies and government practices that are really just trying to minimize their support as much as possible,” Duckett said.
Duckett and his mother, Julissa Coriano, founded the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective in 2018. Both are clinical social workers, sexuality therapists, and advocates in the queer community.
Duckett said their organization began as a provider of family therapy, and clinical education and training, among other things. It then expanded into social programming and direct support services. Those included hosting the Pride Closet clothing drive, and offering recovery support for people healing from gender-affirming surgery.
A brick-and-mortar space had long been part of the conversation, Duckett said.
The Collective is expected to include a visitor center highlighting LGBTQ+ businesses, organizations, and events across Delaware; a gift shop featuring local queer artists and makers; a co-working space with offices and day-pass work areas; and a community room available for meetings, events, and programming.
It will be located on Market Street in Wilmington, but Duckett said the exact address will not be announced until the lease is finalized. It will be near the historical location of Wilmington’s previous LGBTQ+ community center, the Griffin, Duckett said.
Duckett’s organization is raising $500,000 to help cover upfront rent, construction, buildout and long-term sustainability. He said the goal is to make sure the space can last.
“We don’t want to have a really great idea and then it burns out in two years because we run out of funding,” he said.
At the center of the project will be a permanent museum curated by Carolanne Deal, a longtime historian focused on Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history. Deal previously led research for the state’s first digital exhibit on LGBTQ+ history.
Deal noted that queer history is rarely represented in a permanent way in Delaware museums or archives.
“It’s so incredibly important for us to have a permanent space that’s not just a temporary exhibition that comes out once a year for Pride month,” Deal said.
According to officials at the Delaware History Museum, the only active physical exhibit in their space is a certificate for the first gay marriage signed in Delaware.
The LGBTQ+ museum will feature graphics, visuals, text, as well as reproductions of newsletters and panels discussing various historical events, such as the founding of one of the first queer student union groups in the country at the University of Delaware, Deal said.
Deal plans to bring a wide scope of historical events and information about important figureheads in Delaware’s LGBTQ+ community, including Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James Welch, the pioneers who founded “The Griffin,” the state’s first queer community center, in 1986.
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Griffin Community Center served as a meeting place for organizations, such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Delaware, or GLAD, and the state’s first HIV/AIDS service agency, now known as AIDS Delaware.
The center also hosted meetings for various other community organizations.
Dominguez and Welch, who are longtime partners, began their activism in the late 1970s, a time when the community’s advocates across the country were gaining visibility, but also facing a conservative backlash.
Over the years, they organized HIV/AIDS education and fundraising events, founded GLAD, Delaware’s first statewide gay rights organization, and opened Hen’s Teeth, the state’s first queer bookstore, in Wilmington.
The Griffin closed just four years after it opened. Dominguez said burnout contributed to its closure.
Today, apartments stand where the small row building once existed. But Dominguez and Welch said the need for a physical gathering space for Delaware’s queer community never disappeared.
Dominguez and Welch have been assisting with the creation of The Collective by attending planning meetings and doing outreach. As activists who have done the work before, Dominguez says his biggest advice to Duckett and Coriano in establishing the space is to “live as if you are free.”
“We have the benefit and the privilege right now of living in a state that is relatively kind and good to our people; we’ve got to keep it that way,” Dominguez said.
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Acting on the advice of Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission (DTRC) veterinarians and stewards, Delaware Park canceled the remainder of today’s live racing card following the fourth race due to the heat index. Live racing is scheduled to resume with a special live racing card on Tuesday, July 21.
This press release has not been edited by BloodHorse. If there are any questions please contact the organization that produced the release.
Saturday, July 18, 2026 10:24AM
NEWARK, Del. (WPVI) — Delaware State Police are investigating after four people were shot outside a Waffle House restaurant.
Police arrived to the scene, along the 1400 block of Pulaski Highway just after 1a.m. They found dozens of shell casings.
Police sources said four people, two men and two women, were hit. Two are in serious condition, two are stable.
The investigation is active and ongoing. Action News has reached out to police for more information on suspects or a motive.
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Photo: data from the livewildfiremap.com website. Image created with AI on 7/17.
Delaware residents are being urged to limit strenuous outdoor activity Friday as smoke from Canadian wildfires pushes fine-particle pollution into the unhealthy range across the First State.
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control forecast a Code Red Air Quality Action Day for particulate matter Friday, July 17. The state projected a fine-particle Air Quality Index of 186, a level considered unhealthy for everyone.
The smoke is expected to begin gradually clearing Saturday afternoon and evening as winds shift and scattered thunderstorms help mix cleaner air into the region. However, dense smoke may remain trapped near the ground Saturday morning, keeping conditions unhealthy for sensitive groups during the first half of the day.
DNREC forecasts a PM2.5 index of 102 for Saturday, placing air quality in the Code Orange category, or unhealthy for sensitive groups. Conditions are expected to improve to moderate Sunday and Monday, although thin smoke and haze could remain over Delaware.
New Castle County is expected to experience the greatest impact from the wildfire smoke, particularly in Wilmington, Newark and Bear, where fine-particle pollution may remain concentrated near the ground. Kent County, including Dover and Smyrna, is expected to see a moderate impact. Conditions in Sussex County may range from light to moderate depending on wind direction, with Milford, Georgetown and Laurel likely to experience less severe smoke than northern Delaware.
The primary concern is PM2.5, microscopic particles with diameters of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. The particles are produced when trees and other organic materials burn and can travel hundreds or thousands of miles from the original fire.
Because the particles are so small, they can enter the lungs and, in some cases, affect the cardiovascular system. The smoke also contains gases and other pollutants, but federal health officials consider fine-particle pollution the greatest immediate health concern during most wildfire-smoke events.
Light northerly winds carried the dense smoke into Delaware. A temperature inversion — a layer of warmer air above cooler surface air — also helped trap the pollution close to the ground, allowing smoke concentrations to build during the morning.
Saturday’s approaching warm front is expected to turn winds toward the south and southwest. Thunderstorms may also help disperse the smoke. A cold front Sunday could carry a thinner plume back into Delaware, while light winds Monday may allow some haze to linger.
Code Red means some members of the general public may experience health effects, while people in sensitive groups face a greater chance of more serious symptoms.
Those at higher risk include:
Children are more vulnerable because their lungs are still developing, they are often more active outdoors and they inhale more air relative to their body weight. Older adults are more likely to have existing heart or lung conditions that can be aggravated by smoke.
Wildfire smoke can cause burning or watery eyes, a runny nose, throat irritation, coughing, headaches and fatigue.
More concerning symptoms include wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, an irregular heartbeat or becoming unusually winded during light activity. People with asthma may need their rescue inhalers more frequently, while those with heart disease may face an increased risk of serious cardiovascular problems.
Anyone experiencing severe chest pain, significant difficulty breathing, confusion, fainting or signs of a heart attack or stroke should seek immediate medical assistance.
Residents can lower their exposure by moving exercise and other strenuous activities indoors, keeping windows and doors closed and running air conditioning on a recirculation setting.
Portable air cleaners or high-efficiency heating and cooling filters may help reduce smoke particles indoors. People who must spend extended periods outside may consider a properly fitted N95 respirator, although masks do not eliminate all exposure and are less effective when they do not seal tightly against the face.
Healthy adults are generally less likely to experience serious problems from a brief smoke event, but federal health officials advise everyone to reduce exposure when the air reaches Code Red.
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