upcoming

Humboldt Pride Festival

What:

Humboldt Pride Inc. is proud to announce the 2011 Humboldt Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday, September 10th from noon to 5:00p.m. at Halvorsen Park on Eureka’s beautiful waterfront. People from all across Northern California and beyond will be treated to excellent local music, dancing, food, raffles, shopping and people all over Northern California. This 19th annual event is free to all and family-friendly!

The Humboldt Pride Parade and Festival provide opportunities to celebrate the strength of our community’s diversity and they also provide an opportunity to recognize the people and local organizations that make our community so strong and vibrant all year long. Humboldt Pride is now accepting nominations for this year’s “OUTstanding Individual” to honor one person who is openly queer or an ally to the queer community who is acting for positive change. We are also honoring this year’s “OUTstanding Organization” to recognize a local business, non-profit, or other supportive group that is actively working to have a positive impact on our community. The “OUTstanding Individual” will serve as this year’s Grand Marshal in the parade. The “OUTstanding Organization” will be honored on stage during the festival. Please submit nominations by August 1st, 2011.

All floats, cars, clowns, motorcycles, acrobats, bicycles, hovercrafts, unicycles, and all else are welcome to join this year’s Pride Parade. Just download an entry form and meet us in Old Town to kick-off this year’s Pride Festival with a raucous march to Halvorsen Park! The exact parade route will be announced soon.

This year’s theme is “Do Ask. Do Tell. A Call to Action” in an effort to highlight the real need for communication with politicians, neighbors and also within the queer community.  Many developments in the past year deserve more attention. For example, there was a string of highly publicized teen suicides motivated by the bullying and overwhelming pressure felt by queer youth, but there are still teens contemplating suicide today. These young people are still in need of support so we must TELL them that it will get better while we ASK each other why it isn’t better already. And Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was recently repealed. This was heralded across the country as a victory for the queer community, but it was an incomplete victory. Although gays and lesbians will soon be allowed to serve openly in the military, transgender people are still unwelcome to serve openly and those who do serve are left unprotected. We must TELL our political representatives, military leaders, veterans’ groups, and everyone else that this undermines our values and our security and we must no longer ASK members of our own community to accept exclusion for the hope of incremental progress.

In a community as diverse as ours, we sometimes ask too much of each other. Other times we don’t ask anything at all.  In the next few months, Humboldt Pride is encouraging everyone, queers, allies, and everyone else, to ACT. Find ways to love, find ways to laugh, find ways to engage with your neighbors, friends, family, co-workers and let’s continue to make our community stronger and more inclusive.

Sponsors, vendors, visitors, and volunteers can find more information and all forms at humboldtpride.org. Call (707) 223-2591 or email info@humboldtpride.org with questions.

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