{"id":26730,"date":"2020-06-11T23:32:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T03:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26730"},"modified":"2020-06-18T19:13:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T23:13:35","slug":"digital-pride-festival-launches-friday-with-a-night-of-love-and-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/digital-pride-festival-launches-friday-with-a-night-of-love-and-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Pride Festival launches Friday with A Night of Love and Kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
York Pride’s Jacob Gal and Brianne Evelyn with YRP Constable Milad Baygan at a Pride event held in Newmarket this past February. Auroran photo by Glenn Rodger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A global pandemic isn\u2019t going to stop organizers beyond\nthe York Pride Festival from spreading love and acceptance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local organization, which has spearheaded a growing\nroster of family-friendly Pride activities for the past 20 years, was set for a\nbig celebration this year to mark their milestone. Due to present restrictions\nsurrounding COVID-19, however, those celebrations will be back and bigger than\never for 2021, but the countdown to next year\u2019s party will kick off this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe decided we would postpone our 20-year celebration to\nnext year due to physical distancing components, and that includes the Pride\nParade, the concert, community fair, art exhibitions and the list goes on,\u201d\nsays York Pride\u2019s Jacob Gal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, York Pride planned on spearheading more than\n20 events, most of which were partnered or affiliated events, with four key\nsignature events, including the previously planned parties at Riverwalk\nCommons. While they were only able to pull off one of these signature events\nbefore the pandemic hit \u2013 Skate with Pride in Georgina on Family Day \u2013 they\ndecided to plan the balance on a month-to-month basis for the remainder of the\nyear while uncertainty reigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were pretty much ready to not do anything and\ncompletely cancel everything until next year,\u201d says Gal. \u201cBut we decided to do\nreduced programming and live streams every Wednesday and Friday from 7 \u2013 8 p.m.\nEST. In that programming, we wanted to include a launch party, a closing party,\na Pride Day celebration on June 20 planned with Main Street (Newmarket) businesses,\nand then we would do a Netflix party, a Zumba interactive night, and a Kahoot\ntrivia night to mark our 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Launch Party will take place this Friday, June 12,\ncoinciding with A Night for Love and Kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2016, the Pulse Nightclub massacre happened in\nOrlando, FL and that year they started a United Orlando Day for Love and\nKindness,\u201d explains Gal. \u201cWhat we wanted to do was focus on youth \u2013 young\nminds, young hearts \u2013 and we wanted to start building a platform for them to\nhave an open stage and encourage them to claim and create spaces that allow\nthem to be themselves and feel comfortable with their spaces, and use this as\nan opportunity to remind people about what happened in Orlando and how hate can\nbe a really deadly thing in our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the end, when educating, when creating spaces and\nplatforms for people, ultimately love, acceptance and understanding can surpass\nhate and help create a more stable society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partnering with the City of Orlando and the One Pulse\nFoundation, they are sharing a live-stream of the latter\u2019s broadcast while\nbringing in a local emcee to host for a full hour of local and international\ncontent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things we wanted to keep in mind was a part\nof being a growing organization, a small Pride that is trying to become bigger\nand more of a household name in York Region, we have to be constantly pushing\nto be engaging and interact with our residents in York Region,\u201d says Gal. \u201cWe\nlive in a Region with 1.2 million people and some very rural communities, so it\ncan sometimes be extremely hard to reach people. Coming up with content and\nactivities for people is important because the more we can continue to keep\npeople engaged, the more connections we\u2019ll be able to make in the long-run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it is the fact we are limited by\nour budget. We have some amazing partners like Mike\u2019s Music Machine, which is\ngoing to be doing the live stream with us. They have done our lighting and\nsound every year at Pride since 2015. It is important we support our suppliers\nwho are LGBT. Mike has been through quite a lot in their life and we love the\nfact we can support somebody in our own community while they support us back.\nThis gave us an opportunity to not only pay their company to run the live\nstream, but also gives us the chance to engage more queer artists and put a\nspotlight on LGBT talent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Launch Party and A Night of Love &\nKindness on June 12, additional events include Voguing for Vitality with an\ninteractive Zumba experience hosted by Robert Halley, the Kahoot trivia contest\non June 19, where three winners will receive prizes courtesy of Skip the\nDishes, a Netflix party where people can chat and have fun while watching a\nfilm related to the 2SLGBTQ community, and a closing party on June 26,\nfeaturing live bands, drag queen performances, interactive hosts, and prizes\ncourtesy of Starbucks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more, including a complete roster of events and how you can interact, visit yorkpridefest.ca or follow them on Facebook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A global pandemic isn\u2019t going to stop organizers beyond the York Pride Festival from spreading love and acceptance. The local organization, which has spearheaded a growing roster of family-friendly Pride activities for the past 20 years, was set for a big celebration this year to mark their milestone. Due to present restrictions surrounding COVID-19, however, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6X8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 00:03:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}