Volunteers- Making History Now and Then
Leave a CommentDear Pride Family,
Our community has a history of coming together to support each other. I am always inspired when I learn a new piece of history of the volunteer spirit and solidarity that LGBTQIA+ folks have for each other and for other groups fighting for freedom from oppression. The lesbians who supported gay men during the HIV epidemic, organizing the San Diego Blood Sisters who donated blood directly to HIV/AIDS patients and volunteering to sit by their sides when their families and doctors rejected them. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson’s efforts to house, support and fight for their community with their Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR) organization. The first Pride organizers gave their time and energy to stand up for their rights and bring their community together. These examples and many more have had an immense impact on our history and movement, and are all volunteer-led.
Our community’s volunteers have had a large impact on my personal life as well. When I was first coming out, I didn’t have much of a community, and especially not much of one that I knew would support me wholeheartedly as a queer person. As I was exploring my newfound identity and trying to find my place in a community, I decided to go to She Fest in 2021. When I shyly walked up, not knowing what to expect, I immediately felt welcomed and at home. I surprisingly saw some familiar faces, received many (consensual) hugs, adorned myself with pronoun pins and swag, and left feeling joyful, connected, and free, all because of community members and volunteers giving their time to create that space. Later that year, I saw She Fest was looking for committee members and I again shyly jumped at the chance to join. Since then, I have found a place and people that I can be myself with and explore who I am. I have found lifelong friends and lifelong passions. I am so grateful for the volunteers and community leaders I now get to work with because of those welcoming and warm experiences I had when I was first discovering my queerness.
I know I am not the only one with a story like this, finding community in volunteering or at Pride events, or finally having a feeling of freedom and belonging due to an experience at an event or with a volunteer. Next week, April 21-27, 2024, is National Volunteer Appreciation Week and April is Global Volunteer Month. Take some time this month to reflect on the volunteers and community members that have impacted your life, and if you know a volunteer, thank them, write them a letter, share your stories of how volunteers have made your life better, or share your appreciation in any way that works best for you.
I am thinking about the volunteers at She Fest that made me feel at home. The volunteers that put on Light Up the Cathedral to make LGBTQ+ folks from all faith backgrounds feel welcome and supported. The volunteers and awardees at the Spirit of Stonewall Rally that impact our community through every day actions. The volunteers at the Pride Parade that organize over 300 contingents and ensure 300,000 attendees are safe and having fun celebrating our community. The 2,000 shifts covered by volunteers that help us put on the Pride Festival, from setting up to ensuring our event is accessible to supporting our artists to providing enriching workshops to cleaning up when it is all done. I am thinking of the volunteers that run our year-round programs and ensure our community is supported and welcomed in every aspect of their identity all year long.
I am so grateful for everyone that gives their time to support all the things that San Diego Pride does, as well as in our community at large. Thank you, volunteers!
With appreciation,
Linda Glevy
she/they
Volunteer, Event, and Access Coordinator
Marcus Bush
Alex Villafuerte
Paulo Batista
Wendy Schlater 
Erica Pinto
Mack Goehring
Allison Smith 
Friend of Pride: An individual who does not identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, but who has stalwartly supported the LGBTQ community over an extended period of years and/or has made an exceptional contribution in the past year.
Stonewall Service: A group or organization which may or may not identify as LGBTQ but which has stalwartly supported the LGBTQ community over an extended period of years and/or has made an exceptional contribution in the past year.
Community Service: An individual who is recognized as an up-and-coming leader within the LGBTQ community or whose contribution to the community in the past year was of particular significance.
Inspirational Relationship: Any friendship, familial bond, or intimate relationship whose love, strength, work, and commitment to LGBTQ equality embodies the humanity of our community.
Community Grand Marshal: An individual or group that has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the LGBTQ community over an extended period of years and/or has made an exceptional contribution in the past year.
Accessibility Story of Impact
Kori Gillis
Laurie Coskey
Light of Pride: an individual or religious organization that is recognized for their persistent and sustained support of the San Diego LGBT Community and that are making significant contributions to the LGBT Community through their time, actions, talents and dedication.
Community Service: An individual who is recognized as an up-and-coming leader within the community or whose contribution to the community in the past year was of particular significance.
Champion of Pride: An individual who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the LGBT community over an extended period of years with consideration to service to San Diego Pride.
The turbulent stories of our unique perspectives, vulnerable lives and heroic movement are worthy of being preserved and showcased. Visual and performing arts provide for us innovative advocacy and community building palettes where we are empowered to creatively bare out our hearts to find new empathic connections.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court voted to allow a ban on transgender servicemembers while the issue makes its way through lower courts, putting upwards of 15,000 trans servicemembers and their families at risk. Transgender servicemembers have been openly serving in the U.S. military for the last 30 months, and have always been a part of the armed forces, defending this country, and serving our nation with pride.
After the riots at Stonewall, we marched. After we lost Prop 8, we marched. The desire to gather and find community, to be seen and heard, to show collective power or express shared outrage is interwoven within the legacy of our movements for social justice. So much of our community, our organizations, and the programs that serve us can trace their origins back to these sorts of collective public actions. The publicity and word of mouth attention they receive help to spark the subsequent one-on-one conversations that are vital to shifting personal and public opinion.
The resistance to our oppression based on the spectrum of our sexual orientations and gender identities has taken on many forms over the years. Resistance has taken on the form of holding hands in the daylight with the person whom we love, demanding our right to serve openly in the military and legally marry, protesting in the streets, fighting police brutality, and so much more. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, Pride committee members worked diligently to re-envision a model of Pride that went from ad-hoc committees each year to a professional organization that was able to turn a profit from our events and then use those funds to reinvest in our community. Folks like 
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a moment in our history where we fought back against police brutality and the legal oppression of our community. Our community rallied together and commemorated that act of rebellion the following year with the Christopher Street Liberation Day March with solidarity events held in cities across the country. The number of solidarity events has continued to grow every year all across the world, as the global Pride movement now boasts nearly 2,000 identified Prides, organized by hundreds of thousands of people, connecting millions to resources, community, and the celebration of our diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
From Stonewall to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, from the fight for marriage equality to LGBTQ youth and students rights and beyond, our transgender siblings have always been at the forefront of our movement. At the same time, our trans family members experience higher rates of bullying in school, familial rejection leading to homelessness, and have borne the brunt of hate crimes against our community. As hate crimes have risen against our community in the last two years, it’s the trans community, and in particular black trans women, who have been disproportionately impacted. 2018 is still on track toward being one of the deadliest years in history for our trans community.
Today is election day, and we know that the results of this election will have huge impacts on our community for years to come. Today is our opportunity to voice our views and to fight for our liberation from the top to the bottom of the ballot. Make certain that you give yourself the time to vote or to drop off your mail in ballot at a polling location or at an official ballot drop off location today.
In just the last few weeks here in San Diego, a gay Lyft driver was brutally assaulted by his passengers and an LGBTQ-supportive church in the heart of Hillcrest was vandalized—both bold anti-LGBTQ attacks. This comes at a time when residents, patrons, and business owners in the Hillcrest area are reporting an increase in hate speech, threats, and violence towards our community. These terrifying realities coincide with a national increase in violence towards the LGBTQ and other minority communities.
Our community has long known that when we are out and visible we are able to deconstruct the discriminatory prejudices that exist to oppress us. Today is National Coming Out Day, a time for us to proactively step out of our closets and honor that power and liberation we experience when we ask of ourselves and the world around us to embrace all that we are across the spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity.
In my office hangs a copy of the first Pride budget. We had a deficit of one dollar. I love having that piece of history hanging next to me as I work every day. It reminds me of the legacy gifted to us by the pioneers of our movement – those early struggles and successes of our community as it fought legal oppression, societal norms, and too often internally. Yet, as our community does, we persisted and grew stronger as community members like 
When I first began working at Pride in 2011 we were not yet using photos to tell the story of our organization or community. While we had enjoyed LGBTQ employment protections for some time in the state of California – San Diego had the highest concentration of LGBTQ military personell in the country, and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had not yet taken effect. The risk was too great for our service members.
It’s back to school time, and while this can be an exciting part of the year for students and families, for LGBTQ youth it can be exceedingly stressful. Although many people assume that LGBTQ youth today are growing up in a world that supports and affirms their identities, we regularly hear stories of bullying, erasure, degradation, violence, and threats of expulsion because of their identities. The tattered patchwork quilt of policies and practices that support our LGBTQ youth can vary wildly from district to district, school to school, class to class, and faculty member to faculty member.
In 1969 the Stonewall Riots against legal police brutality towards our community inspired organizers in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to hold “Christopher Street Liberation Day Marches” in 1970: the origins of Pride events as we know them today. As Pride events began to sprout up in more cities across the country and the world, they evolved into more than just marches — they became opportunities for us to make community connections while building political power.
1. She Fest
2. Get Social
3. Food Trucks and Drinks
4. Movement Stage!
5. Pride World Forum
6. Get Tested
7. Volunteer
9. Rock Your Pride
10. Children’s Garden
11. Get Your Tickets Online
12. Military Contingent
13. Light Up The Cathedral
14. NoH8
15. Youth Zone
17. Become a VIP!
18. Spirit of Stonewall Rally
19. Mundo Latino
20. Pride Block Party
21. Youth Marching Band
22. Make a Sign
24. Utopia
25. Get here (Uber, Shuttle, Bike)!
26. LGBTQ+SD
27. The Leather Realm (18+)
28. Burner Village
29. Proclamation
30. Pride Merch!
San Diego Pride was once a program of The San Diego LGBT Community Center. Since the origins of our movement, many Prides and community centers were connected as they all sprouted from the same few people; those pioneers, those seeds of our movement. In the 90s Prides across the nation came under legal attack from anti-LGBT extremists and many Prides, including San Diego Pride, became separate entities in order to protect the 501c3 nonprofit status of our centers and the vital services that they provided. That’s what our community does; we defend each other and help one another succeed.
Pride season is upon us, and volunteer shifts for Pride 2018 are filling up fast! With so many areas to volunteer with the decision can be a hard one so pick two, three or four volunteer shifts! You can even volunteer all weekend! See below for three of our most exciting opportunities.
San Diego Pride is thrilled to announce that multi-platinum female music group, En Vogue, will be headlining at San Diego’s Pride Festival this July!
Join San Diego Pride as we team up with the Padres for the best OUT at the Park yet, as the Padres take on the Miami Marlins at 7:10 pm on Friday, April 21st at Petco Park.
San Diego LGBT Pride is pleased to announce that due to the success of this year’s Pride event, we are able to donate $80,000 of our proceeds back to 40 LGBT-serving organizations through our annual Pride Community Grant Program.
2015 Spirit of Stonewall Awardees
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