The New West Pride Society is preparing to welcome thousands of folks to town for 15th festival.
The city has proclaimed Aug. 9 to 18 as Pride Week in New Westminster. Pride Week culminates with the annual New West Pride street festival.
“This year’s street festival on Saturday, Aug. 17 includes a variety of entertainers performing on two stages, as well as roving Columbia Street amidst the crowd,” said Madeleine Gwynne, the society’s vice-president. “We have more food trucks this year, a wide variety of vendors, a kid’s zone, lounge tents and more to accommodate the 40,000 people who make their way each year to New West for Pride.”
Building on the success of last year’s street festival, New West Pride has applied for a site-wide liquor license and is working with community partners, like Steel & Oak Brewing Co., to supply local brews.
The New West Pride Society is also working with the Last Door Recovery Society to provide a Sober Lounge during the street festival on Columbia Street.
Jessi Gillis, a board member, said Pride Week includes a variety of events, including brunches, lunches, swims, dancing, karaoke, Poetry in the Park and much more.
“We are also excited to be planning out the events for another fantastic 10-day Pride Week,” she said. “Community organizers and businesses all over the city are working to plan events to celebrate and recognize 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and to provide safe spaces where everyone can connect and be our true selves.”
Pride Week kicks off with a flag raising at New Westminster City Hall on Friday, Aug. 9. Details about all of this year’s Pride Week events can be found at newwestpride.ca.
Patricia Morales said Pride Week is an amazing opportunity for the community, both allies and queer people, to gather and celebrate diversity of gender and sexual orientation and expression. She recently told city council that New West Pride wants to grow so it’s meeting community needs all year long, not just during “one fabulous week” in August.
“Thank you again for everything you do already to support our efforts and by continuing to put forward strategic goals that prioritize social justice and community belonging,” Morales told city council. “Beyond our festival, our Pride celebration are important demonstrations to our community that New Westminster is a place to belong for all.”
The City of New Westminster’s Pride Week proclamation stated that internationally and close to home, homophobia, transphobia, and hateful rhetoric and actions still threaten the peace, well-being and lives of two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual people, as well as people who are allies to or identify with the community yet cannot be restricted by a label.
“New Westminster city council’s first strategic priority is Community Belonging and Connecting, which is viewed through a context of diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism,” said the proclamation. “The aim of Pride Week is to promote education in diversity, equality, and belonging as well as providing opportunities for the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community to connect for the good of all.”
Katie Stobbart, president of New West Pride, said the society is grateful for the support from the City of New Westminster, but seeks the city’s help to grow beyond the annual festival.
“That might look like advocating to community organizations and businesses about contributing to or working with Pride. It might be finding new and innovative ways to collaborate with city and other partners on projects that involve queer people. Or it might look like supporting funding for future initiatives,” they said. “When you’re having conversations with people in positions of power, please keep Pride in mind. We are here, we are queer, and we are ready to make a difference in our community.”
Pride Month is often celebrated in June, in recognition of the Stonewall Riots that occurred in June 1969. The demonstrations in New York City were a key date in the gay rights movement.
“New West is a fun community to be queer in because we get the whole month of June and then we come back in August, and we’re like here we are again,” said Coun. Nadine Nakagawa. “I really appreciate the joy and the fun of Pride and the importance of celebrating people for who they are. It feels so important now more than ever when members of our community are getting so much push back.”
Nakagawa believes the celebration of love and appreciation is valuable every day – more now than ever.
“I don’t want to forget the politics in Pride; I’m always a politics in Pride person,” she said. “Just thinking back to the origins of Stonewall, it was a fight for people’s right to exist and to be themselves. It’s so essential.”
Coun. Paul Minhas said the festival is a very important day for a lot of people in New West.
“It’s an amazing event,” he said. “We have people come from throughout the Lower Mainland. I’ve been told numerous times that outside of downtown, this is one of the best Pride festivals.”
