16/03/2024
Sharing on our account the announcement made earlier today by Paducah PrideFest. It really took us a moment to gather our words - at this time, we would love to share with our Facebook Family our story & perspective of this journey and what it has meant to us!
Paducah Pridefest started with a group of AMAZING humans within Paducah's LGBTQ+ communty who had a vision to bring a Pride festival back to our area! In the early month's of 2022, Beautiful Paducah's Co-founders Whitney & Tyler Wallace fatefully crossed paths with this group during the infancy & early stages of establishing BP as an organization, and conversations started flowing on how we could make this vision a reality with them! With one of Beautiful Paducah's proposed key 5 pillars of civic engagement being to support "Diversity", and with our hearts full of love & support for human equality - it was a no brainer that we needed to step-up & stand next to our LGBQT+ brothers & sisters as their allies and advisory board to help in the planning & logistics process that comes along with making something like this happen!
So. Much. Blood. Sweat. And. Tears. Went into planning the very first PrideFest event and we were all so floored at the community's response to what we created together, and the overall energy that filled the air that day, all the way from sun up to sun down! It was pure magic! The outward display & the feelings of love, unity, and togetherness that was shared amongst our PrideFest planning committee and beyond will go down as one of the best moments in our organization's history! All of this wonderful energy & momentum carried into 2023 and our PrideFest committe came together to create another very successful event for our community!
But with success & growth must also come failures, and 2023 brought with it several challenges. We witnessed divides & cracks begin to form in our steadfast Paducah Pride community & leadership team as a whole, and by the end of 2023 - our PrideFest Comittee chairs made the executive decision to step down & allow space for the community to heal and move forward without them.
In January of 2024, meetings began with the remaining members of the PrideFest team, and we all worked very hard to put our heads together to find ways to delegate the work load efficiently, in a short amount of time, so that we could make this happen for our community!
But the truth is, morale was low and the energy that is necessary, as well as the human resources/manpower required, to put on a festival of this magnitude was too great for the remaining members to take on, and starting over with an entirely new group this late in the game just did not feel realistic to the collective.
As a result of the adversity our PrideFest Comittee was faced with on both an internal & external level after 2023's PrideFest - Beautiful Paducah had already began internally working through the process of what it would take to come together with our members of the PrideFest Comittee to help them begin their own non-profit and for us to pass along the torch & resources for the event to be sustained entirely by the LGBTQ+ community going into 2024, this was well before any changes in leadership had occurred. This "changing of the guard" so to speak is what we had always envisioned was our part to play in Paducah PrideFest. To help create it, help build it up, streamline processes & make sure it was stabilized, and then put back it back in the hands of the LGBTQ+ to continue the experience for generations to come.
That may not be exactly how things have panned out, but we don't regret this journey for a moment & we don't feel our work here is done with the Paducah Pride Community!
Our goal going forward will be to help consult with LGBTQ+ groups interested in starting their own non-profit - whether it is to put on a festival to celebrate your freedom & community during Pride month, to create a much needed community outreach based organization to provide mental & emotional support for children and/or adults, to spread awareness & to educate, or to help stop bullying and the degradation of basic human rights! Whatever unity looks like to you, we would love to help you shine your light in a world that needs it more now than ever!
All in all, we couldn't be more proud of every single member of the PrideFest leadership comittee, and every single member holds a special place in our heart! Each of these indivuals selflessly stepped up in such a big way to give a piece of themselves to make this happen for two amazing years for our community! We couldn't be more grateful for the volunteers, vendors, and sponsors that helped make this event possible - and most importantly all of you who showed up and showed out! It wouldn't have been possible without you! THANK YOU!
Truly, it has been an absolute honor and we will always stand beside & with ALL of our brothers & sisters - no matter your race, color, religion, s*x (including gender identity, s*xual orientation, and pregnancy), and national origin... Because it is each and every one of you unique humans that makes Paducah, beautiful.
Thank you again for allowing us to be a part of your community, and remember - love will always win!
