After a year of planning, our pride event was a smashing success!
By Kirsten Krol, Pride Committee Member
With over 200 people in attendance, the event was enjoyed by folks from Beverly and Rundle Heights, Highlands, Montrose, Beacon Heights, and many other parts of Edmonton.
Although the weather did make us pivot to fully indoors, we crammed every space available with joy. We had a selection of yard games (Tetris, Jenga, etc), painting, beading, glitter tattoos, and so much music!
First up was a performance by a 30 piece orchestra called the Cosmo Pride Band followed by multiple lively performances by Dragging Youth. The final act was a group of up and coming Drag Artists lead by Puddle3000! High energy and highly entertaining with a lovely blend of audience participation and fast paced music!
Along with crafts, entertainment, delicious hotdogs, and treats representatives from Beyond Belonging, Edmonton Public library, and Camp Dragonfly. MLAs Peggy Wright (Edmonton Beverly-Clairview) and Brooks Arcand-Paul
(Edmonton-West Henday; Shadow Minister Indigenous Relations) were on hand to open the festivities with land acknowledgements along with an official congratulatory certificate in honour of our inaugural pride event!
Our silent auction was a massive hit with all who attended and many people went home with goodies. We were able to raise over $900 for Camp Dragonfly, which will be a big help to the summer camps that this nonprofit youth group runs. If you missed the event, but would like to support them, you can visit their fundraising page here.
On behalf of the pride planning committee, we would like to extend our thanks to all of those that volunteered their time - we could not have had such an amazing day without all of your hard work. It was wonderful to see everyone pitch in and help with every aspect from set up to tear down and all of the crafts, kitchen, cleaning, etc.
To all of you in the community that donated items to make our event a success, we extend our heartfelt thank you! We could not have put this event on without many local businesses and community members helping out:
- Save On Foods
- The Medicine Shoppe
- Canadian Tire, Manning Town Centre
- Rundle Roots
- Sheldon's No-Frills
- Party City
- Made in Highlands
- Audrey’s Books
- Kind Ice Cream
- The Comedy Factory
- Funky Fun Socks
- Ma & Pa Woodart
- Shoppers Drug Mart
- IKEA
- Rapid Fire Theatre
- ReMax Realty
- Tamra Rose,
- Barb Hamden,
- The Taylor family,
- Andre and Christine Bezanson
- Kirsten and Pawel Krol
- Tracey Hirtle
- Ashley Cantwell
- Ashley Fiddler
- Nicole Nott
- Eastglen High School
- Nickela Anderson, Trustee Ward D
- Ashley Salvador, Councillor Ward Métis
- Peggy Wright, MLA Beverly-Clareview,
- Brooks Arcand-Paul, MLA Edmonton-West Henday
- Janice Irwin, MLA Highlands-Norwood
... And the City of Edmonton for Grant money through the Neighbourhood Services Connections Grant.
We look forward to hosting a pride event again next year and will be starting planning soon. We would love to have your support and welcome your feedback. For those that attended our event, here's the post-Pride feedback survey. We'd love to know what your favourite part of our Pride Celebration!
The Beverly Heights Community League thanks you all so much for coming together and spreading the love! Everyone is welcome. Everyone belongs!