Message from the Executive Director: August

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What Happens When Community Shows Up at Ann Arbor Pride

In the weeks since Ann Arbor Pride, I have been recovering and reflecting on my experience walking through the festival.

Our Pride Organizing Team spends most of the year preparing for Pride. There are meetings, permits, fundraising, vendors, entertainment, volunteers, emails, spreadsheets, and about a thousand details that somehow have to come together for one day in August.

But once Pride begins, something changes. I am able to take some time this year to actually walk up and down the festival and talk with people along the way.

I stopped at booths run by nonprofits and advocacy organizations. I talked with spiritual leaders and small business owners. I checked in with people I have known for years and met others for the first time.

People told me about the work they are doing, what they are seeing in their communities, what they are worried about, and what they need. I talked with organizations trying to meet growing needs with limited resources and people who simply wanted their neighbors to know that they were welcome and supported.

Walking through those conversations, I was reminded of just how much power exists within our community.

This year, approximately 25,000 people came to downtown Ann Arbor for Pride, alongside more than 200 vendors and organizations. Those numbers are incredible, and I am deeply proud of how Ann Arbor Pride has grown. But standing in the middle of it, the numbers weren't what struck me most. It was the people.

Pride brings together people who might not otherwise find themselves in the same place. A nonprofit can meet a new volunteer. Someone looking for an affirming spiritual community can meet a faith leader. A small business owner can show their LGBTQ+ neighbors that they are welcome. An advocacy organization can reach someone who didn't know help was available. Someone who came to Pride alone can leave knowing a little more about where they belong.

That is the power and influence of our community. It isn't held by one organization or one person. It lives in the connections between us.

There is another reason I am especially proud of this year's Pride.

Ann Arbor Pride is our largest fundraiser of the year. Because our community showed up, Pride raised enough money to help pay the rent on the Jim Toy Community Center and continue the year-round programming that happens inside it.

It keeps the doors open for support groups, social gatherings, workshops, community conversations, and those smaller moments of connection that happen at the Center every week. It means there is a physical place where someone can walk through the door and find community.

When I think about Pride that way, there is a beautiful full circle to it. Our community comes together to create Pride. Pride helps sustain the Community Center. And the Community Center gives our community a place to come together all year long. None of it happens without people showing up.

So, more than anything, what I feel after this year's Pride is gratitude.

I am grateful to the people who gave their time, talent, resources, and energy to make Pride possible. To our organizing committee and volunteers, our sponsors, vendors and performers, and the nonprofits, small businesses, faith communities, advocates, elected officials, and community organizations who filled downtown Ann Arbor, thank you. And I am grateful to every person who simply showed up.

For more than 30 years, people have gathered for Ann Arbor Pride. Every generation has shaped it, grown it, and made it their own. We are the current caretakers of something our community has built together.

That is a responsibility I don't take lightly. Walking through Pride this year reminded me how lucky I am to be one of those caretakers and how powerful we are when we show up for one another.

Thank you for trusting us with Pride. Thank you for helping us keep the doors of the Jim Toy Community Center open. And thank you for continuing to build this community with us.

Pride may be one day. But what we build together lasts all year.

Save the Date: Ann Arbor Pride returns Saturday, August 7, 2027. We can't wait to see you downtown.