With the ground still damp from two days of damaging storms in the Chicago area, south and southwest suburbs residents flocked to Flossmoor Park Friday evening to celebrate Pride Month with food, music and community.
“I think during times like this, when same-sex marriage and like, gender-affirming healthcare is being targeted so badly right now, I think it’s important to just show people that we’re here,” said Chicago Heights resident and Bel Canto choir member Pip Herrman.
Homewood Flossmoor Pride Fest is jointly organized between the two villages and their shared Park District.
Stephanie Wright, Flossmoor’s community engagement manager, said it was important to her that the LGBTQ+ community feel seen and welcomed.
“There’s intention behind this event,” Wright said. “It’s important to us that this isn’t just a party, that we remember that Pride started because of a protest, and that there are resources here, for the LGBTQ community and everybody, allies as well.”
Resident Melanie Engstrom said a diverse and accepting community was one reason she’d moved to Flossmoor.
“My brother-in-law is gay,” Engstrom said. “When he first came out, there was some talk of conversion therapy going on. That was 20 years ago. So we definitely try to show support where we can.”
Local organizations set up booths at Pride offering resources and support to members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“God loves everybody. I know that there’s people who’ve been, felt like they were excluded in churches, or specifically told that they are not loved,” said Emily Kramer of Faith Lutheran Church in Flossmoor. “We want people to know they are loved.”
Faith Lutheran Church voted in May 2025 to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, meaning that it is actively committed to LGBTQ+ acceptance, Kramer said.
This year was Homewood Flossmoor Pride Fest’s fourth year running, but the first year it was held in Flossmoor, said Marta Youngblood, who manages events for Homewood.
In past years the event has been held at Irwin Park in Homewood, Youngblood said, but since there’s construction underway there, Pride Fest was moved to Flossmoor this year. Going forward, she said, the event will hopefully alternate between the two villages.
“The goal was always to come to Flossmoor, maybe off and on,” Youngblood said.
Transgender Flossmoor resident Owen Granger volunteered at the booth for advocacy organization PFLAG. He moved to the area about three years ago, he said, and had found community through the group.
“I moved from Texas to try to escape a lot of the issues down south,” Granger said. “Being able to find a place like this where I felt like I could make friends and really be myself was a big factor.”
Homewood resident Bailey McSuhm came to the event with her wife. She expressed frustration the Homewood Village Board passed a recent resolution that banned flying any flags other than official government flags on village flagpoles, including rainbow flags.
“We’re obviously mad that Homewood is dropping the ball this year,” McSuhm said.
Despite that, she said, she was proud of her neighbors and community.
“It is sad that Homewood’s not really doing as much acceptance as possible, but again, I do really love that our neighbors are just so wonderful and welcoming,” McSuhm said. “It’s still a really nice place to live.”
Members of Homewood’s Bel Canto Community Choir, many of them adorned with rainbow accessories, gathered ahead of a planned performance of several songs, including “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks and “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper.
“We are here to just kind of, add our voices to all the voices in the community who want everyone to know they’re welcome,” choir member Katharine Herrman said.
Friends Audie Simmons of Flossmoor and Jade Yambao of Mokena attended together.
Yambao said Pride is important because “it shows resilience.”
“It’s still a protest,” Simmons said. “That’s what it originally was, and that’s probably what it always will be.”
Pride Month falls in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, which were in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, one of the few establishments in the city at the time that served the LGBTQ+ community.
“I think it’s really important in these times, when there’s so much queer hardship in the news, to show that there’s still queer joy,” Simmons said.