With a community as diverse as ours, no one person or organization could ever hope to meet the needs of everyone across that beautiful spectrum. San Diego Pride is no exception. That is why throughout the year and during Pride weekend we partner with more than 70 nonprofits and community groups to ensure we are meeting the needs of as many people as possible. Just at the Pride Festival over 350 nonprofits, community groups, restaurants, small businesses, and sponsors come together to serve our 50,000 attendees.
UCSD AVRC ran their Good To Go Testing for Tickets program ahead of Pride and then conducted HIV testing at the Pride Festival. The San Diego Black LGBTQ Coalition worked with our Latinx and QAPIMEDA coalitions to create a Pride POC Passport that encouraged attendees to learn more about our region’s LGBTQ POC resources and businesses. FOG (Fellowship of Older Gays) helped to bring in more LGBTQ competent senior resources and hosted our Senior Cool Zones. Bankers Hill Community Group helped keep the neighborhood near the festival clean all weekend, and then they and Hillcrest Town Council both cleaned our streets on the Monday after Pride. The San Diego History Center hosted us and our Mayor Kevin Faulconer as hepublicly came out in support of the Equality Act during Pride week, and they will again host ourYouth Leadership Academy later this fall.
Each of us is distinct, we are diverse, and we often disagree. In a nation and time that too often denigrates and discriminates against our differences, too often with dire consequences, it is still impressive to me that our community can come together in service once a year to flip the script and celebrate our differences rather than disparage them. When I can look across this country and see so much divisiveness, it gives me a great deal of hope to see how together we rise above as we all engage in our Legacy of Liberation.
Fernando Lopez was the Executive Director of San Diego Pride. Lopez’s years of LGBT advocacy, nonprofit management, public education, diversity consulting, media relations, guest lectures, and organizing have made them a consistent presence ensuring the struggles of the LGBT community are ever visible.
