It’s almost that time again for Kelowna to show its Pride
Week of Pride celebrations will start Saturday
Aspirations to expand Kelowna Pride have been tempered by a lack of volunteers. Like many organizations, the group has had trouble recruiting new members to both help stage events and serve on its board of directors.
“Some of our big goals for taking Pride to the next level have sort of been put on hold for now,” Dustyn Balkham, the group’s past president, said Thursday.
“We’d definitely like to get more people involved, because right now we have a pretty small but hard-working group,” Balkham said.
Several Pride directors quit their association with the group last winter and replacements could not be found.
Pride Week begins tomorrow and runs through next weekend. Signature events include a Trans March and Social on Aug. 16, Kelowna’s Next Drag Superstar competition on Aug. 17, and the Pride March and Festival on Aug. 18.
There are Pride-themed activities taking place in connection with other community events, such as a Love is Love celebration at the East Kelowna Community Market on Aug. 12 and Teen Takeover of the Chapters bookstore on Aug. 16. (For a full list of events and times, see Kelowna Pride’s page on Facebook.)
An estimated 6,000 people took part in the Pride march in 2017, walking along the downtown waterfront. Some thought was given this year to turning the event into the kind of on-street parade seen in other cities.
“We’d considered a parade down Water Street, but the reality is once you get into street closures that becomes a whole different ball game, with more challenging logistics,” Balkham said.
“So we decided to just stick with the march for this year, but that will be reconsidered next year,” he said. “Personally, I like the idea of a march rather than a parade, because it’s more inclusive and truer to the origins of Pride.”