On Saturday, June 21st, over 140 people gathered for Talkeetna PrideFest. Attendees paraded around town carrying signs before gathering in Talkeetna Village Park. Booths were set up with various activities, such as face painting, while a band played live music.
Talkeetna hasn’t hosted PrideFest since 2019. COVID-19 shut down the event in 2020, and after that, Lillian Lennon, one of the original organizers of Talkeetna Pride, moved out of town.
When Hannah Petrich moved to Talkeetna almost three years ago, she was surprised there weren’t any pride events. Petrich said she knew Talkeetna had hosted them in the past.
“So I was waiting a few years to see PrideFest come back, and realized that it starts just with people like Lillian and CJ and that anyone can do this,” Petrich said.
So she got to work, reaching out to the community and meeting others who wanted to help bring Pride back to Talkeetna.
“This town showed up like crazy,” she said, “The responses were overwhelmingly positive, and dozens and dozens of people were reaching out. And then it just took off from there.”
Petrich said even with all the community support, there were some hurdles along the way.
“The biggest challenge we faced at first was in approaching business sponsors,” she said, “We couldn’t offer something fancy like a tax write-off because we’re not a nonprofit.”
Petrich said the next step following PrideFest is getting that nonprofit status for Talkeetna Pride. She added that, outside of making things simpler organizationally, having an established nonprofit would make it easier for Pride to come back year after year.
“This is something Lillian and I talked about as we kicked off this year’s process of wanting it to be bigger than any individual humans here, where if I ever leave Talkeetna that pride doesn’t wait another six years to come back,” she said, “There is a permanent nonprofit in place to make sure these resources always stay available.”
Petrich said they don’t plan to wait until next year to host an event. Talkeetna Pride is working to organize a drag event in town as well as a “Big Sibling” mentorship program.
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