(Tap to Zoom in New Tab)Welcome to Knox Pride Fest 2023
It's that time of year again! We are so very excited to welcome ALL to Knox Pride Fest 2023! After a transition year in 2022 to a new schedule and being dormant due to Covid 19 in 2020 & 2021, we are excited to bring awareness, community, and love to the front of the line for Pride Fest weekend!
This year we have over 150 service providers, queer vendors, and entertainment highlighting the best of our queer community throughout East Tennessee. We are focused on local, on home, and honoring our East Tennessee entertainers and resources. There is so much to celebrate, including the Sunday portion of our programming highlighting the two year anniversary of the Knox Pride Community & Resource Center and the free services we've been able to provide - support groups, community events, workshops, seminars, life skill classes, and so so much more. We have averaged over 25 FREE events per month for the last 24 months and there is no sign of slowing down. That tells me the need is great for our community. We opened a Thriftique that is free to the community and launched two additional Pride Pantries in 2023! As you may have seen in the press release, we have secured funding for our current two spaces for all of 2024 and we are in the process of expanding from 2,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet. We look forward to 2024 and the adventure that awaits our community. We are proud to work for our community and are committed to continuing our growth.
This year we have been more vocal in political matters, in the rights of our community, and using our privilege, our reach, and our voice to lift those up that cannot lift themselves up. We have to stand as a united front to protect every single member of our community. We will continue those efforts and more in 2024 with adding a 501c4 to the fold, a Mutual Aid committee partnering with community agencies to expand our resources and reach, and working to build out more programming, more resources, and a better tomorrow for Queer East Tennessee.
Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Protect Trans Youth. Affirming Health Care is suicide prevention. As the CEO and Executive Director, I promise to work harder than ever to make sure those statements resonate throughout our community and all the way to our state legislature in Nashville for the folks who would prefer not to see us.
We are here, and we are queer, 365 days a year!
Please enjoy the weekend, show compassion, love more, and let's work toward a better tomorrow for us all!!
(Tap to Zoom in New Tab)