Sunday June 13th marked the 20th anniversary of Long Island Pride. As we do every year, we rounded up many our participants and some high school GSA clubs (gay straight alliance) to attend this highly anticipated event! Everyone had a lot of fun on this very special day.
If any of our readers haven’t experienced The Long Island Pride Parade I highly recommend attending next year. The day starts with a family friendly parade down Main Street in Huntington. You hear cheers coming from the crowd lined up on the street and a lot of chants from the marchers. There are smiles and rainbow flags everywhere as we all come together to celebrate the LGBT community. The parade ends in Hecksher Park where a festival is held. At the festival you will find many LGBT organizations at tables sharing their resources. And of course there is plenty of food and entertainment.
I am proud to say that our participants have a lot of talent, and this showed at the festival when they performed on the stage. Up first we had Lorenzo singing a top R&B hit. Next we had Britney and Mary singing “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent. Then last but definitely not least we had The Princess Minaj Hatter Project with a well choreographed dance! Our kids did a great job up there and the crowd loves them.
As the day rolled to an end you could feel the energy of Pride in the park. When you take the walk out of the park you have the opportunity to see a timeline tour consisting of pictures from Long Island Pride each year before. I always like to take a few minutes there to remember how different things were 15 years ago. We fought many struggles and hardships just to have one day a year we could be out and proud. But we have come a long way and today we don’t run into these issues as much anymore.
Thank you to all who came to march with us, all that came as supporters and everyone who was there celebrating our pride with us. This huge amount of support from the community really does help our kids in more ways than I can say.
