LGBT pride is typically celebrated in June in honor of the Stonewall riots. In Bloomington, the annual Pride Summerfest is in August to include IU students.
Bloomington Pride will have its annual Pride Summerfest at 3 p.m. Saturday. The event will feature live musical performances, educational workshops, music, food and interactive activities for all age.
Pride Summerfest will take place on Kirkwood Avenue .
This will be the third year of the event, which had 6,000 attendees last year. Bloomington Pride said they expect an even larger turnout this year.
Sarah Perfetti, executive director of Bloomington Pride, said the group also works to include youth education by giving youth opportunities to create their own experiences and programs.
Perfetti said youth can have leadership positions and join committees, such as Prism Youth Community’s education and training committee.
The committee recently trained 600 administrators in Monroe County in cultural sensitivity, how to train teachers to understand and help students coming out, and how to be open in the classroom.
“A lot of times these kids are speaking in rooms full of adults, giving presentations, which is really cool.” Perfetti said. “They’ve been doing tremendous things.”
Another committee is the special events committee, which puts on the Know Your Glow party.
The Know Your Glow party is a youth and teen-oriented event presented by the Prism Youth Community, a program under Bloomington Pride.
Prism has committees, specifically the special events committee, with youth in Prism to plan this event.
Laura Ingram, Bloomington Pride’s youth program director, said Prism helps to create youth spaces at Summerfest, such as Know Your Glow and other all-ages activity spaces, and encourage Prism youth to volunteer throughout the day to help run booths and activities within the Summerfest.
She said events like Know Your Glow are important to create safe spaces that celebrate the LGBT community.
“The community in Bloomington can really come together in an effort to provide a safe, affirming, educational and fun space for people of all ages.” Ingram said. “It’s specifically important to create youth-friendly spaces at these events to ensure that youth both from Bloomington and the surrounding areas have a place to be themselves and meet other queer or allied youth.”
Perfetti said giving students a voice and an opportunity to create programs they are interested in is important, rather than having the adults guess what might be important for them and hoping it is helpful to the youth.
She said going to these types of events is a great way to expose kids to openness and being inclusive.
Know Your Glow will be at Rhino’s All Ages Club from 8 to 11 p.m. with pizza and games from 8 to 9 p.m. and a dance party from 9 to 11 p.m. It is free and open to anyone between the ages of 12 and 20.
Pride Summerfest starts at 3 p.m. Saturday in downtown Bloomington and runs until 2 p.m. Sunday with brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Cardinal Spirits.
Events will be ongoing throughout the weekend, and an official schedule can be found on Bloomington Pride’s website, bloomingtonpride.org.
“I know a lot of my friends who are allies and who have kids,” Perfetti said. “They bring them to Summerfest and expose them to openness — not just sit down and talk to them about it, but let them experience it themselves.”
