Poison Waters is performing at Saturday’s Pride in the Park event. (Courtesy/ Poison Waters)
When Paul McKean moved to Salem, he said he and his partner knew they wanted to get more involved in the LGBTQ community. They decided to jump head-first into helping organize Salem Pride in the Park.
“One of the things I really love about working on pride in Salem I can just show up and be involved,” he said.
The Saturday event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Riverfront Park, almost didn’t happen this year, according to McKean. He said a lack of volunteers and an inability to generate interest kept it idle.
But the group put out one last call for support on Facebook. McKean said 30 people showed up to volunteer and then pride was back on.
[ KEEP YOUR LOCAL NEWS STRONG – SUBSCRIBE ]
This year will be a more scaled-down version of the event because planning took longer to get off the ground, McKean said.
But, organizers already have their eye on next year, hoping to make it a larger event.
“We’ve had so much excitement around this event,” McKean said. “It has really exploded on social media.”
Nearly 900 people plan to go, according to the event’s Facebook page. That’s more than expected, McKean said, noting they turned sponsors away over worries they would run out of space.
“It’s actually getting bigger and bigger just from the interest from sponsors and organizations around the community,” he said.
McKean said Salem is holding its pride event in August for two reasons.
“Some of the bigger events in Portland and Seattle take up a lot of the oxygen in June,” he said. “We want to show that LGBTQ pride can be celebrated in any month and be a year-round event.”
The event will feature live drag performances from Poison Waters and Darcelle XV – the oldest performing drag queen in the states.
McKean said there will be plenty of booths to check out, plus food carts and a small beer garden.
People curious about the family-friendly event should just show up, McKean said.
“We encourage all sorts of folks to come out. Whether you identify as part of the LGBTQ community or not,” he said.
Have a tip? Contact reporter Saphara Harrell at 503-549-6250, [email protected] or @daisysaphara.
