Stonewall Columbus Media Contact:
Kathy Crowe
Communications & Creative Services Coordinator
XPebjr@FgbarjnyyPbyhzohf.bet
STONEWALL COLUMBUS PRIDE™ RETURNS TO IN-PERSON EVENTS IN JUNE 2022
Festival and Community Resource Fair set to return to Goodale Park
Stonewall Columbus Pride™, the annual Central Ohio region event celebrating LGBTQIA+ rights, culture, and progress, will return to Goodale Park and the Short North Arts District the third weekend of June 2022. The Stonewall Columbus Pride Festival and Community Resource Fair will take place Friday, June 17 and Saturday, June 18. The Stonewall Columbus Pride March will be Saturday, June 18.
This is the first time the events will be in-person since 2019, when last visitors to the Central Ohio region events exceeded well over 700,000 during the weekend. “We are excited to begin planning for in-person Pride events in 2022, as the City’s pandemic restrictions did not allow us time to do so last year” said Densil Porteous, Executive Director of Stonewall Columbus. “We are beginning to work closely with local officials, the community, and partners to ensure the creation of a healthy and safe experience for all those who attend.”
The last two years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Stonewall reimagined pride events, the organization’s largest annual fundraiser in support of programs and operations, by producing virtual Pride programming. In 2021, along with several other partnerships, a collaboration with NBC4 (WCMH-TV), NBC4i.com, and Columbus production company Mills James brought the celebration of Pride into the homes of more than 300,000 people via online and television broadcast.
The 2022 festival and resource fair will be held in Goodale Park—a first since 2016. “The Stonewall Columbus Pride March has been a consistent and continuous moment of celebration of Pride Month in the Short North Arts District throughout its history,” said Betsy Pandora, Executive Director of the Short North Alliance. “In the six years since the festival was last held in Goodale Park, our community has become even friendlier for parade and festival-goers with the addition of nearly 1,000 hotel beds and more parking options than ever before. As a vibrant, creative, and inclusive community, it will be amazing to not only again celebrate a return of the live and in-person parade, but to now also have the festival return to the heart of the District where we are welcoming to all.”
An annual celebration, Pride events, across the globe aim to bring community together in camaraderie and recognition of the strength, resilience, and fight of the LGBTQIA+ community past and present; a fight for equity and equality that is far from over. Porteous, who joined Stonewall Columbus full-time in 2021 and is the first Black, cis-male leader of the forty-year-old organization, sees Pride as an opportunity to engage businesses in the appropriate investment of the queer community. “In addition to bringing together a diverse and intersectional community of LGBTQIA+ identities and our allies Stonewall Columbus Pride events are a great opportunity for the businesses in the Central Ohio region to demonstrate their support of the LGBTQIA+ community, the businesses’ employees, and equity and equality on a larger scale” said Porteous.
“We also understand the great opportunity we have to ensure that queer businesses in the community benefit from such a large gathering of people in support of our community” relayed Porteous. “This year we hope to create more partnerships with queer businesses and plan on closing festival events an hour early on Friday night; we look to partner with and encourage local queer/LGBTQIA+ affirming establishments to host events both Friday and Saturday evenings in recognition of the weekend.”
For event, partnership, and volunteer information visit https://stonewallcolumbus.org/pride/
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Stonewall Columbus, an independent 501(c)(3)nonprofit, is one of the oldest LGBTQ+ community organizations in the country; founded in 1981, today Stonewall Columbus’ mission is to increase visibility, inclusion, and connection for the LGBTQ+ community. Stonewall represents more than 10,000 LGBTQ+ and allied community members in the Central Ohio region. Stonewall provides an array of evolving programs and services to the LGBTQ+ and allied communities supported by community donations, corporate partnerships, and grants. Annual Columbus PRIDE events and march are produced by Stonewall Columbus. Stonewall’s physical home is the Center on High–a community center for all. Stonewall envisions a community where we all THRIVE.
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Mission: increase visibility, inclusion, and connection for the LGBTQ+ community.
Values: History. Visibility. Inclusion. Connection. Accountability.
