History of Lancaster Pride
Lancaster Pride was founded in 2007 with the concept of creating a welcoming event to celebrate the lives of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. One year later in 2008, Lancaster’s first Pride festival was held at Buchanan Park. Lancaster Pride has since planned and held yearly festivals as well as other affirming events to celebrate the community. While support and visibility have grown, every year Lancaster Pride Festival welcomes more visitors, volunteers, vendors and performers.
Being an organization, Lancaster Pride strives to create a diverse board of volunteers to ensure that everyone in the community is heard and included. From humble beginnings to large festivals with thousands of visitors, we have watched the transformation of Lancaster in both human rights and the celebration of diversity.
Our Mission
Lancaster Pride is a celebration of the progress that the local LGBTQ+ community has made toward achieving visibility, acceptance and equality within Lancaster County. Being an organization, Lancaster Pride is committed to producing a vibrant festival that honors these achievements. We strive to offer engaging programming that best meets the current needs of our population, while evolving to fulfill future needs. We want to educate, collaborate, and build partnerships with our allies, associations, and other organizations that directly support the LGBTQ+ population.
Our Vision
Lancaster Pride desires for the social, legal, and financial equality for all members of the LGBTQ+ community. We desire to create an environment wherein all communities in Lancaster County are treated with respect and dignity. In turn, we want a world where understanding, acceptance, and celebration is a reality for all people.
Our Values
We believe that building a stronger Lancaster County LGBTQ+ community will bring greater strides in inclusivity and diversity.
We believe that providing tools to community leaders and offering opportunities for collaboration will increase growth and understanding.
We believe that recognizing, understanding, and celebrating diversity in our own community will bring progress for all, and that our own board and organization should be representative of our community.
We believe that collaboration with all marginalized and vulnerable subsets of our population helps the progress of all, and in order for advancements in social justice we must uplift and empower the voices that need to be amplified.
We respect and defend all races, ethnicities, religions and creeds that join our mission.