NW PA Pride Alliance: Thanks for a great 2018
from NW PA Pride Alliance
Thanks to our donors and supporters, 2018 was a great year for the NWPA Pride Alliance. We celebrated Pride this year with our theme, "Remember the Past, Create the Future."
This year's Pride Fest set an all-time record for attendance - over 1,500 people attended, making it the largest Pride event in local history. We were honored that Erie City Major Joe Schember and his staff walked in the Pride Parade, and that the Mayor spoke at Pride Fest. In addition to the City of Erie painting a rainbow crosswalk between City Hall and Perry Square, the Mayor also chose to announce the Mayor's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council (which included board members of NW PA Pride Alliance) during Pride Fest. We were very much honored that our event was chosen to make this historic announcement. We were also very pleased to have a great time with everyone who came to the 26th annual Pride Picnic in August.
We also continued to focus on increasing the visibility of NWPA Pride, building connections to community partners and promoting issues important to the LGBTQIA community. We marched in the Edinboro University Homecoming Parade with Identity, Edinboro University's LGBTQIA student organization. We participated in the annual Fourth of July Parade in Millcreek. We also continued our partnership with the Erie Seawolves for "Pride Night at the Erie Seawolves." We partnered with The Zone Dance Club for Painting with Pride. We donated gift baskets for National Night Out in Gridley Park as well as the Pink Party Breast Cancer Awareness Weekend at the Zone, and hosted the fourth annual Pride Day at Waldameer Park and Water World. We were also proud to sponsor the production of "The Laramie Project" at Dramashop for the 20th anniversary of Mathew Shepard's tragic murder.
We are already hard at work planning for 2019 with the goal of building on the growth we enjoyed in 2018, and we look forward to the support of our donors and our community partners. We thank everyone for their continued support and we look forward to seeing you in 2019 at Pridefest on June 29th and the Pride Picnic on August 10th.
