After originating in Charlottesville, the Impulse Gay Social Club can now be found at a second location. It opened in Waynesboro this month for members. WMRA’s Mike Tripp has the story.
[Music]
It's Friday night. Karaoke night. One person sings but the crowd joins in for the chorus.
KEVIN MORRIS-LEWIS: Impulse is a social club for the LGBT community and like-minded people.
Kevin Morris-Lewis helped open and operates the club.
MORRIS-LEWIS: We don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what walk of life as long as you have an open mind, and you come with a peaceful attitude and an attitude of just having fun … you’re welcome. And that stands from gays, straights, lesbians … You know, everybody. So, it gives them a place to be themselves, meet people like them and to know, “You’re not wrong in being who you are.”
The original Impulse club opened in Charlottesville in 2013. So why open a second location? And why Waynesboro?
MORRIS-LEWIS: Because for seven years in Charlottesville, we’ve been noticing a lot of the people who enter through our doors … a lot of the members we’re getting are from this side of the mountain. And it just came to the point where there was a need for it in my opinion. There’s nothing really over here like this, and so we felt like it was a good time. It was the right time.
Rita, who chooses not to give her last name, was born male, but finds the club a place that accepts her for who she is now.
RITA: Everyone’s accepted. It means that regardless of what you are, you’re accepted here. It feels good.
MORRIS-LEWIS: Here at Impulse, we don’t look at you as race. We don’t look at you as sexual orientation. We look at you as a person, at your character and who you are. And that’s all we care about.
