MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) - A new committee has been formed in Middletown to plan a Pride celebration for the city.
The common council approved Mayor Daniel Drew’s request for the LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee at its Oct. 1 meeting. The vote gave nine members an advisory role in planning a Pride event to be held for the first time next year.
“It could be a parade, a concert, a riverfront event or something else,” Drew said. “We want this to come from the committee. I didn’t want to just dictate what it was going to be, the best way to do it was to put a committee together.”
Officials said there are very few Pride events in Connecticut, and apparently only a handful of similar municipal committees.
The idea to hold a yearly Pride celebration came when Middletown raised the rainbow flag in June to celebrate LGBT Pride Month.
Assistant General Counsel Chris Smedick asked Drew if the city could participate, and they talked about the chance to do something even bigger, they said.
“Ultimately what I’m excited about is the community coming together and coming up with a way to celebrate Pride and Pride Month, but something that’s planned from the ground up with support from the city,” Drew said. “This really is a welcoming community and it would be nice to have a flagship event for Connecticut.”
Smedick will serve as the staff liaison to the committee. They will likely hold the first meeting in November, he said.
“We know we want to do some sort of Pride celebration or event, but we don’t know what that looks like yet, so that’s why we need input from the community,” Smedick said.
Inclusion will be one of the primary focuses of the group. Getting every sector of the LGBTQ community involved alongside the existing Middletown landscape will make the events successful, he said.
“The LGBT community is like a big tent, and we have a lot of different groups under that one tent,” Smedick said. “I’m hoping it’s a stepping stone. By doing this, we can get more of the infrastructure together to meet needs in the future.”
The council resolution establishing the committee says local events are a way to promote greater understanding between LGBTQ groups and the communities they live in.
“We need to start small and see how it progresses,” said Sal Uccello, one of the nine members. “But we also want it to be something people outside the community want to come for, and we also want it to be family-friendly. There’s a lot of big families out there who are looking for inclusion and acceptance.”
Uccello said he moved to Middletown with his husband years ago after growing up in Hartford, which hosts one of the few other year Pride events around.
“One of the reasons I love Middletown is because it’s such a diverse city,” he said. “My husband grew up in Middletown and he was always saying it’s wonderful. Until we lived here, I didn’t realize how diverse and wonderful it really is.”
Another member, Christine Santacroce, said she responded to a Facebook post Drew made earlier this year seeking volunteers. She has seen the difficulty her brother has had in coming out, and wanted to be part of an effort to make communities as welcoming as possible for her children’s generation.
“Everyone is pretty excited about being one of the few communities in Connecticut that is doing this,” Santacroce said. “The goal is to be a community other people are going to come to. This is new territory and we get to make this what we want it to be.”
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Online: https://cour.at/2Eo8vm0
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Information from: Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com
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