ECU alumna awarded U.S. Chamber’s inaugural LGBTQ-Owned Business Achievement Award

East Carolina University graduate Victoria Kidd and her business Hideaway Cafe were honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with its new LGBTQ-Owned Business Achievement Award.

Hideaway Cafe, owned by East Carolina University graduate and 2015 ECU 40 Under Forty awardee Victoria Kidd, was honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in October as the recipient of its newly created LGBTQ-Owned Business Achievement Award. The award is given to a business that has attained outstanding achievement and exemplifies significant contributions made by LGBTQ-owned businesses.

Kidd, who received a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology in 2001 with a concentration in law and social change, said she and the cafe’s staff are extremely proud of the honor.

“I am very, very humbled to have had the cafe be selected for this award, and to be the first recipient of it — as it is a newly established category in the U.S. Chamber’s Dream Big Awards — is particularly thrilling,” Kidd said. “We feel that receiving this honor goes a long way to increasing the visibility of LGBTQ contributions to our community, and we hope that we are able to encourage more business owners to become increasingly active in their neighborhoods.”

The cafe, located in Winchester, Va., was established with limited service in 2015 and opened to the public in 2016. Kidd’s work focuses primarily on empowering people to make positive change in their communities. The cafe is a critical organizing hub for that work.

“Hideaway is often recognized as the best coffeehouse in the region, but its core identity is really that of a safe space and an organizing hub,” she said. “In 2015, the region was notoriously conservative and there were no openly affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals in the area. Opening this business provided that space, while also establishing a hub for committees, organizations and activists to meet to advance work that betters the community.”

During her time at ECU, Kidd enjoyed the people, programs and growth that was offered.

“East Carolina provided me endless opportunities to expand my understanding of the world and my place in it,” Kidd said. “Its programs offered an academic rigor that truly expanded my capacity for critical thinking, while affording me a chance to really dig deep to develop the values and ideas that were foundational to my adult life. Every teacher I encountered was a trusted resource in the process, and even today, walking the ECU campus feels like coming home.”

As her daughter gets older and the cafe becomes more established, Kidd hopes to provide additional service to ECU and the Greenville community.

“I learned the value of ‘servire’ from my time at East Carolina, and I honestly believe that choosing ECU has made me a better person,” Kidd said. “I cannot imagine a scenario where I would have grown up not working to improve the lives of those around me.”

Kidd credits the service lessons learned at ECU for allowing the cafe to prosper in helping others in the community.

Hideaway Cafe in Winchester, Va., opened to the public in 2016.

“While this award is humbling, it is the fact that we have raised and donated over $50,000 in cash and in-kind donations to charity since opening that I am most proud,” she said.

The cafe and Kidd’s charitable efforts have included leading a summer meals program for participating youth at the Kids Clubs of the Northern Shenandoah Valley (formerly the Boys and Girls Club), organizing a food drive that collects more than one ton of donations annually, disaster relief fundraising that led to the establishment of a new, low-barrier food pantry in the area, facilitating monthly fundraisers for nonprofits across a wide range of service types and supporting the establishment of the first Pride festival in the area.

Welcome to the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center at East Carolina University. As part of the Department of Intercultural Affairs within Student Involvement and Leadership at ECU, the LGBTQ Center works in conjunction with our colleagues in the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, the Women and Gender Office, and the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement to cultivate a transformative and culturally competent community centered in intercultural learning. We strive to foster understanding and acceptance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. The Peel LGBTQ Center works each day to develop tomorrow’s leaders to serve and inspire positive change.

In 2011 ECU’s Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center was founded with the mission of fostering understanding and acceptance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. the center serves the entire ECU campus.