Capital Pride’s 2017-18 report illustrates huge success as they prep for 2019 celebrations

Photo credit: Aaron Hemens

Capital Pride has lots to celebrate this Pride Month! The organization’s 2017-18 report was released last week and shows that last year’s Pride Festival was the biggest yet in the National Capital Region with a record-breaking turnout and more special guests and events than ever.

About the report, Capital Pride Chairperson Davy Sabourin says, “The report not only highlights last year's tremendous successes: it’s also a way to demonstrate how we – a mostly volunteer-run organization with finite resources – work to deliver on our mission in concert with community partners, members and allies.”

The following are just some of the ways Capital Pride expanded their initiatives and outreach last year:

• Expanded the Summer Festival to two days
• Added new youth events
• Launched the Community Fund project
• Different community organizations and groups organized over 65 different events during the 2018 festival
• We expanded the street festival to include Somerset Street between Bank Street and O’Connor Street
• Booked the largest headlining acts yet, including: Bif Naked, Brooke Candy, Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine, and RuPaul’s Drag Race Superstars Aja, and The Vixen

According to Capital Pride Community Engagement Officer Mandy Wilson, the continuing success of the festival, and all of the organization’s community events, is all owed to the generosity and hard work of volunteers and community support saying, “Capital Pride wouldn’t be what it is without the dedication and passion of our volunteers and staff on the Operations Committee, and our volunteer Board of Directors. We are also grateful for community members and allies, stakeholders, different levels of government, sponsors and donors for supporting us in our common goal of creating opportunities to educate, advocate, celebrate and connect people.”

The team is now hard at work planning the 2019 week-long pride celebrations, scheduled for August 18th-25th, with more details to be released soon. We cannot wait to see what this year has in store!