Get ready to “raise your flag” Saturday for Elgin Pride’s 4th annual parade and festival.
“Our mission is to cultivate celebration, education, visibility and safe spaces, and this year’s theme captures that spirit,” Elgin Pride Executive Director Sam Raue Hebert said. “’Raise Your Flag’ means bringing your full self and showing the world what makes you unique.”
The parade starts at 11 a.m. at the downtown intersection of Prairie Street and Riverside Drive with a free festival following at Festival Park, 132 S. Grove St., until 5 p.m.
New this year is a longer parade route, said Travis Hooker, a parade founder who is on the Elgin Pride Board of Directors.
The route steps off at Prairie and heads down Riverside Drive, turn onto East Chicago Street and continues to South Spring Street being traveling back to Prairie Street. In the past, the parade included South Grove Avenue, but organizers added a block to provide more viewing spaces, Hooker said.
“Raise Your Flag” as a theme came from brainstorming sessions discussing the various things faced by the LGBTQ+ community this year, Raue Hebert said. A common thread was the idea of visibility, she said.
“We’re visible but maybe not in the ways we want to be,” she said.
It sometimes feels like the queer community’s progress over the years is being rolled back, she said, making Pride Month is more important than ever. And interestingly, more and more suburban communities are holding Pride events.
Last year, it felt like people were holding back a little during Pride Month, Raue Herbert said. “This year, it feels a little more like, let’s do this. Let’s dig in and make spaces for ourselves.”
Elgin Pride also wants to create a safe space for people to be visible. “I think we are not feeling that (safety) anymore,” she said.
The parade and festival is a place where you should be able shows your unique self to other people in a joyful, celebratory setting, Raue Herbert said. There are so many pride flag designs from which parade participants can choose, including the Straight Ally Pride Flag or an American flag, she said.
The goal is to create a totally family-friendly vibe, Hooker said. It’s also a “very grassroots, local community event,” he said.
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LGBTQ+ musicians and performers, artists, local vendors and food trucks will be at Festival Park after the parade ends. They’re expecting 10 to 14 food trucks, including one selling Maine lobster items, and about 50 vendors, Hooker said.
There are many churches involved, too, which is “really great,” he said. “There are some people who don’t feel they can attend a church because they are gay, which is not the case,” Hooker said.
Elgin Pride’s Official After Party is back this year from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the downtown Martini Room, 161 E. Chicago St. Tickets to “Drag is Art,” a 21-and-over party, can be purchased for $29.38 at the Drag is Art Eventbrite.com page.
Nonprofit Elgin Pride hosts events throughout the year, including a queer book club, a mountaineering club, game night and other gatherings, Hooker said. The parade and festival are its biggest events, he said.
There are two other pride events being presented in the area in June.
RISE Pride Month Art Exhibit Opening Reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 5, at Side Street Studio Arts, 15 Ziegler Court, Elgin. The event is free.
Resonant Voices: Celebrating Community Through Sound, a concert performance by Chamber Music on the Fox, will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. Monday, June 15, at First Congregational Church of Dundee, 900 S. 8th St., West Dundee. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for students, available on Chamber Music on the Fox’s website, chambermusiconthefox.org.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.