Color filled the streets, music echoed down the block, and flags were being waved. People dressed as colorful as possible while laughing and singing to songs. Pride Day was here and was celebrated by the community of Gulfport.
The day was full of festivities ranging from pop-up tents by vendors and local restaurants hosting drag queens.
Some vendors people saw were: SeaWorld, Republic Bank, OUT Arts and Culture, Keep Pinellas Beautiful, King of Peach Church, and many more.
One small business called Queer’d Apparel, brought their LGBT art inspired pieces to the street fair. Rachel Csontos and her two friends design shirts, stickers, magnets, bags and crochet pieces that are focused only on LGBT topics.
“The whole premise is being queer focused. And I notice myself that when pride month comes around I want to get all dressed up for the parade and all of that, but there’s not always somewhere to go,” Csontos said.
She said that she has noticed stores pulling back their pride wear, but they will not. Queer Apparel can be found on all social media sites and on Etsy.
At her stand, visitors can see how her art is “queer focused” as she called it. The bags and stickers had jokes about different LGBT topics. For example, “Move, I’m gay” and “My pronouns are your/ dad.” One sticker combined a few social issues that stood out on a baking tray. The sticker was two hands one of color and one that was white holding hands with handcuffs on. Around the two hands, it said be gay do crime in rainbow colors.
Another high energized tent was Keep Pinellas Beautiful. Here, people were able to spin a wheel that was labeled with different harmful products being littered.
Anastasia Egelie, is the coordinator of this program and she said she went to Pride day to get more members of the community to join their mission.
“We are trying to increase the diversity of people coming to these events, because everyone needs to care about the environment,” Egelie said.
Increasing diversity was a common phrase most vendors used as a reason they were at the event. At the King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church tent, they wanted to increase diversity and be a church where everyone is welcomed.
“We want to be the light for anyone in the darkest so come out of the closet its more fun in the light of god,” said Cindy Campione who is a member of King of Peace church.
She said they want to share the love with others and went to Pride day to educate how inclusive they are. Cindy said they welcome everyone to come as they are or who they want to be and how they worship all backgrounds, orientations, and all family situations.
Their purple shirts and signs said “God thinks you’re fabulous.”
Overall, it was a fun morning and the party did not end till the sun went down. This was Gulfport’s 5th annual Pride celebration.
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