St. Joe shows its Pride
By Kendra Simpson
St. Joseph celebrated its diverse community this weekend with the St. Joe Pride Festival.
The non-profit organization, St. Joe Pride, hosts a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community every September at Coleman Hawkins Park. The festival includes live music, drag performances, vendors, face paint, inflatables and more.
“We have got more vendors than we’ve ever had at Pride,” Pride Board President Kenny Crawford said. “They’re selling everything you could ever imagine here. We’ve got food trucks so come out hungry. We have our beer tent. My gosh, anything you want is here.”
This year, Pride celebration began days prior to the actual festival, starting with a Pride Worship Service at Zion UCC and a showing of “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” at the Trail Theatre.
Pride is meant to celebrate everyone in the LGBTQ+ community, even those who have yet discovered their whole identity.
“My favorite part would probably be the drag shows,” Vice President of the Pride Board, Mika Malone said. “The drag community was a very important part of me coming out as transgender. Seeing all those beautiful drag queens and just not caring about, you know, what other people thought, I was like just blown away by them.”
The Pride festivities continued Saturday from 3 to 10 p.m. at Coleman Hawkins Park. The Pride Parade will began at 5 p.m. starting at First Christian Church.
