At the end of August, Kate Stern received a letter from President Barack Obama in which he thanked the staff and volunteers of LGBT community centers across the nation. Stern is the director of Bowdoin’s Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and she is a member of the Consortium of Higher Eduction LGBT Resource Professionals.

The president’s note comes in advance of the sixth annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center Awareness Day on Sept. 15. “For decades, LGBT community centers have been at the forefront of expanding opportunity and increasing support for LGBT Americans,” Obama writes. “By providing a broad range of important resources — from cultural and educational programs to social and health services — these centers improve lives and remind us of the ability we have to realize the future we seek. Centers like yours help us become not only more accepting, but more equal as well.”

Bowdoin will celebrate LGBT Community Center Awareness Day with an open house at its newly renovated meeting space at 24 College St., which houses the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Women’s Resource Center.