Gathered in City Park, many people  with an estimate of 1,000 people attending came out to celebrate the LGBTQ community and provide support at Manhattan’s 10th annual Little Apple Pride parade and festival.

“This years Pride, like every year before, Pride is a chance for people to get out and see each other and to support each other and to support each other,” said Mary Shirk, the MC for Pride. “To see the vendors that are people who are LGBTQ can see that there are doctors and veterinarians and apartment complexes and businesses that support them and encourage our community… and it’s a great chance for everyone in Manhattan to come out and really be themselves and be comfortable in being themselves.”

It took a year for the committee to plan and organize this year’s Pride entertainers, sponsors and donations from businesses.

“A lot of people were involved in a pretty big committee, broken down into all the little parts that make it work,” Shirk said.

Pride provided an space for everyone from every type of sexuality and gender to have fun and celebrate with live music, parades and drag queens without the fear of judgement from others. This event provided many different Pride merchandise from flags, buttons, pins and car tags. Many different organizations had booths representing their causes, such as support for abuse survivors and free HIV testing for those in attendance.

Manhattan High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance provided a booth, talking to the countless people attending MHK Pride about the importance of having a high school GSA.

“At Pride this year we met with students from LGBTQ organizatons from other schools along with students who wanted to start GSA clubs,” senior Kennedy Shirk, StuCo representative for GSA, said. “We think it would be great to work with those other schools and groups in our area to make a more cohesive community.”

GSA hopes to make an impression for other students within MHS that they have a club that is open for anyone and will be willing to join and participate in future GSA events.

With the success of Pride the planning for next year is already preparing more ways to improve and show community all the sources of support they can access within town.

“Every year you want more people to come out, that’s the goal of every festival, every sort of pride event is more people to come out and more vendors, more businesses to come out and say, ‘Hey, we’re supportive of your community,’” Mary said. “I personally would like to make sure that we add more booths, more resources for mental health and for that kind of support for our community.”