By Adam Donnelly

Kamloops kicks off Pride Week with a flag-raising outside City Hall

Aug 20, 2018 | 4:55 PM

KAMLOOPS — Last year marked the first-ever Pride Parade held by the Kamloops Pride Society in the City of Kamloops. The event drew thousands into the downtown core, whether to take part or to spectate, a turnout which thrilled organizers of the event.

“Last year totally surpassed our expectations,” Kamloops Pride President Kirstin McLaughlin told CFJC Today. “We had over a thousand… marching in the street and over a thousand watching.”

Monday at City Hall, Kamloops Pride and members of the community kicked off Pride Week 2018 by raising the Pride Flag, planning for a bigger and better celebration throughout the city.

“[We’re] building on a lot of the enthusiasm of last year, and there’s a large appetite for some more diverse entertainment in the city,” McLaughlin said. “We decided this year we’d do that. We kicked off Pride Week Saturday with a window display contest down on Victoria Street… [Tuesday] we have a ‘Living LGBTQ2S+’ panel happening at the downtown library. Wednesday we’ve got a sold=out comedy show happening, Thursday we’ve got ‘Night Lives Drag Show’ happening at the Blue Grotto, Friday we have an art crawl happening. Saturday we have the Farmers Market happening, and a dance at The Shark Club and Sunday’s the big event, with the parade in Riverside Park.”

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Donovan Cavers and Kathy Sinclair were the only two representatives from Kamloops City Council at the event. Sinclair says she’s happy the Pride flag was the first to fly on the new community flagpole outside city hall.

“Any community group is able to apply to fly their flag,” Sinclair said. “Personally, I’m really pleased to see that Pride is kicking it off here today. I think it’s very exciting to say that we are a Pride-friendly city.”

Katlyn Blaine started the petition calling on the council to raise the flag to celebrate Pride week. She says now that it’s up, she’s happy with what that formal recognition of Pride means for the LGBTQ2S community.

“I think it’s important to have formal acceptance,” Blaine said. “Actually having something that symbolizes [Pride] so people can see that and say ‘I’m safe here’.”

McLaughlin echoed Blaine’s sentiment.

“It just means a tremendous amount for the community to see that they do have the support of city council, yay or nay votes aside. Having spent a lot of time without council, I certainly know that we have their support.”

Pride Week is now underway throughout the city, with a number of events scheduled throughout the week, culminating with the Pride Parade on Sunday morning at Riverside Park. You can click here for a full schedule of Pride Week events.