BELFAST — The 2023 Belfast Pride Parade will be immediately followed by a celebration in Heritage Park, rain or shine, on Saturday, June 10. Belfast Area High School’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance Group is organizing and leading the parade.

“The group says the more the merrier for marching and asks participants to gather at BAHS beginning at 10:30 a.m.,” said Our Town Belfast, in a news release.

Marching will begin promptly at 11 a.m. and travel through downtown to end with a celebration filled with food, refreshments, and music in Heritage Park.

When community member Seth Thayer learned about this year’s parade plans, he asked what more could be done to show support, acceptance, and love for the students, and our entire LGBTQ+ community. So, he approached Our Town Belfast to help organize a celebration.

“I am so proud of our city’s high school students who planned and organized this parade,” said Thayer. “We are all human beings and to be able to celebrate our differences in such a celebratory way is fantastic. For our community to come together and support these students is so important. As American’s we should all have the freedom to be our authentic selves and the liberty to celebrate those differences. Thank you so much Belfast Area High School students and allies for your support of human beings everywhere.”

June is nationally recognized as Pride Month and throughout Maine, there are parades and festivals planned despite the growing tensions across the nation, as states pass restrictions on our LGBTQ+ community.

“Our Town Belfast is a Main Street America & Main Street Maine organization whose vision, mission and values support an inclusive community of family, friends and visitors. OTB strives to grow and support Belfast as a historic, artistic, culturally cool, working waterfront community that is inclusive, authentic, quirky, eclectic, dependently independent, and multigenerational friendly,” said Mary Mortier, OTB’s Board Chairperson and Belfast City Councilor. “It is extremely important in this era of social media misinformation and political partisanship that we support ‘Pride’ month every day of the year, but especially in support of our student-led event in downtown Belfast on Saturday, June 10.” 

This event is again being sponsored by the Belfast Community Co-op whose Marketing Manager, Jamie Cermak, said, “We’re glad to continue to support Belfast’s Pride Parade and our area youth who made it happen! The Co-op is here for our entire community, and we want to make sure everyone feels welcome in our store AND our great town!”

If you would like to contribute to the celebration with a donation or by volunteering, please contact OTB Executive Director, Amanda Cunningham at director@ourtownbelfast.org or by call the office at 207.218.1158.
You can learn more at https://ourtownbelfast.org/belfast-pride-celebration/.

OUR TOWN BELFAST is a community driven, inclusive, Main Street organization whose mission is to grow and sustain our historic downtown while celebrating our unique cultural heritage. We believe in supporting local businesses, honoring our heritage through historic preservation, and bringing together the community to make downtown Belfast an inclusive and better place to work, shop, play, and live. Our Town Belfast envisions a vibrant future in which our waterfront commercial district, treasured historic buildings, and outdoor public spaces are alive with inclusive, interactive, and multigenerational activity.