Conejo Pride shines its colors
At the second annual Conejo Pride Festival, the community gathered once again to show their support for the LGBTQ community. The festival took place on Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in front of the Civic Arts Plaza.
On the field, many booths were set up for merchants, political parties and support organizations. Performances were also held at the event which included drag queens, the Trans Chorus of LA and the LGBTQ Country Line Dancers. American Idol’s David Hernandez and Effie Passero also made an appearance in the finale.
Betty Black, performer, was a drag queen who danced to the song “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from the musical “Dreamgirls.” While Black has been to many pride festivals in the past, this is her first time participating as a performer. She decided to give a performance because she saw this as an opportunity to give back to the community. She loves to perform in her free time to share her art with other people and put smiles on their faces.
“The most meaningful part of this is that we are all coming together as a community, because there is so much going on in the world. We are just spreading love here and that’s what I love about it,” Black said.
Emily Wells, organizer of Free Mom Hugs, led a group of volunteers to give free hugs to people as they walked into the festival. Free Mom Hugs was first started by a mom whose son came out to her but was struggling as the community was not accepting of him. She posted a Facebook post offering to be a stand-in mom at same-sex marriages. As the post went viral, she started the organization Free Mom Hugs.
“We go to any event where someone can organize. We get volunteers, parents of different genders and races. We have some who are in the LGBTQ community and the rest are parents of LGBT. And we are here, we are encouraging, we try to create a safe space and just to give a hug,” Wells said.
For Jamie Jewett, senior, this was her first pride festival. Jewett read about the festival on Facebook and decided to come experience the festival for herself.
“This shows me that people are really making an effort and trying to do something. So it is just good for me to see that this is going on,” Jewett said.
