Southend Pride 2019
Donation protected
Last year, Southend-on-Sea saw its first Pride celebration in fifteen years.
Our small team of unpaid volunteers raised over £20k, and put on a festival unlike Southend has ever seen. Our week-long festival of arts, culture, faith, and entertainment, culminating in our amazing Pride Festival in Warrior Square saw thousands of people enjoy a whole week celebrating the LGBTIQA+ community.
We intentionally made all of our events last year free because we believe that Pride should not about rampant profiteering and that it should be fundamentally a community-owned political event, highlighting how far we’ve come as a society, and how far we have still to go in terms of advancing LGBTIQA+ rights.
This year, we are in a more difficult financial position, however.
Last year we benefitted massively by using funds given to us from the National Lottery and other available grants, but unfortunately, due to the rules, we are unable to reapply for these same grants again this year. This means that despite our best fundraising efforts, currently, we don’t yet have the all of the required funds to run Southend Pride, leaving us with the option to either scale back the planned events and/or introducing paid tickets. These are options we do not want to have to explore, but we are left in the situation whereby we currently have little choice.
This is why we’re appealing to you today.
We need to raise £5000 within the next two weeks to ensure that the Southend Pride that we’ve all worked so hard on and enjoyed last year is kept as we believe it should be. We had 4,500 people take part in our main festival celebrations last year, and if all those wonderful people donated just £1 we would be most of the way to achieving our £5000 goal.
We believe that Pride should be free for everyone, and we have always refused to tread the path of making our celebration exclusionary by making it a ticketed event. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and it is just as important today that we remember, celebrate, and stand up for LGBTIQA+ rights. With your donation, we can make that happen again in Southend this year.
Additionally, if you are interested in becoming a Sponsor of this year’s festival or the events, please contact our team at;
[email redacted].uk
Thank You
The Southend Pride Organising Committee
05.06.2019
Our small team of unpaid volunteers raised over £20k, and put on a festival unlike Southend has ever seen. Our week-long festival of arts, culture, faith, and entertainment, culminating in our amazing Pride Festival in Warrior Square saw thousands of people enjoy a whole week celebrating the LGBTIQA+ community.
We intentionally made all of our events last year free because we believe that Pride should not about rampant profiteering and that it should be fundamentally a community-owned political event, highlighting how far we’ve come as a society, and how far we have still to go in terms of advancing LGBTIQA+ rights.
This year, we are in a more difficult financial position, however.
Last year we benefitted massively by using funds given to us from the National Lottery and other available grants, but unfortunately, due to the rules, we are unable to reapply for these same grants again this year. This means that despite our best fundraising efforts, currently, we don’t yet have the all of the required funds to run Southend Pride, leaving us with the option to either scale back the planned events and/or introducing paid tickets. These are options we do not want to have to explore, but we are left in the situation whereby we currently have little choice.
This is why we’re appealing to you today.
We need to raise £5000 within the next two weeks to ensure that the Southend Pride that we’ve all worked so hard on and enjoyed last year is kept as we believe it should be. We had 4,500 people take part in our main festival celebrations last year, and if all those wonderful people donated just £1 we would be most of the way to achieving our £5000 goal.
We believe that Pride should be free for everyone, and we have always refused to tread the path of making our celebration exclusionary by making it a ticketed event. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and it is just as important today that we remember, celebrate, and stand up for LGBTIQA+ rights. With your donation, we can make that happen again in Southend this year.
Additionally, if you are interested in becoming a Sponsor of this year’s festival or the events, please contact our team at;
[email redacted].uk
Thank You
The Southend Pride Organising Committee
05.06.2019
Organizer
Southend Pride
Organizer