Pride Week (Toronto)
Pride Week is a ten-day event held in Toronto, Ontario, during the end of June each year. It is a celebration of the diversity of the LGBT community in the Greater Toronto Area. It is one of the largest organized gay pride festivals in the world, featuring several stages with live performers and DJs, several licensed venues, a large Dyke March, a Trans March and the Pride Parade. The centre of Pride Week is the city's Church and Wellesley village, and both the Dyke March and the main Pride Parade are primarily routed along the nearby Yonge Street, Gerrard Street and Bloor Street. In 2014, the week will serve as the 4th WorldPride, and is expected to be much larger than standard Toronto Prides.
Pride Week is organized by Pride Toronto, a non-profit organization. A small complement of seven staff support the work of 19 festival teams and 6 advisors, each team is responsible for an aspect of the festival. Each team is administered by two or three volunteer Team Leads. The long-term vision for, and strategic oversight of, the organization and the festival is managed by 12 volunteers on the Board of Directors.
The organization's current executive director is Kevin Beaulieu, a former assistant to current city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam and former city councillor Adam Giambrone.
Read more about Pride Week (Toronto): Festival Overview, History, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Controversy, World Pride 2014, Awards, Third-party Events
Famous quotes containing the words pride and/or week:
“It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,—not though it be of the Garter,—confers so fair an honour.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Some days your hat’s off to the full-time mothers for being able to endure the relentless routine and incessant policing seven days a week instead of two. But on other days, merely the image of this woman crafting a brontosaurus out of sugar paste and sheet cake for her two-year-old’s birthday drives a stake through your heart.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)