With just over two months to go, preparations are beginning to come together for the annual Pride celebration.
Pride organizers this week unveiled the winner of the logo contest and also announced the local community leaders who will be leading the parade down Market Street June 12.
Philly Pride Presents, with the input of judges Scott Drake and Chuck Volz, selected Mary Sullivan’s logo submission as the winner. Sullivan will receive a $200 cash prize and ride on this year’s grand-marshal float.
Philly Pride Presents executive director Franny Price said the organization held a logo-design contest about 15 years ago, and decided to bring the competition back this year to further engage the community in the event.
“We wanted to get the community involved and get different people’s outlooks and perspectives,” she said. “This year the theme is ‘Pride Around the World,’ and we thought it’d be fun to have somebody within our own community design a logo that reflects that.”
The logo will be used on all promotional materials for the event, on the website and on Pride T-shirts.
Sullivan will be joined on the float by several community leaders Philly Pride presents will honor for their contributions in the last year.
This parade typically features two grand marshals, but this year there will be three: Carrie Jacobs, Jeff Sotland and PGN.
Price said PGN was selected to honor its recent 35th-anniversary milestone, while the two local leaders have invested immeasurable time and energy into respective segments of the community.
Sotland, the co-chair of the board of the William Way LGBT Community Center, recently stepped down as commissioner of the City of Brotherly Love Softball League after years at the helm.
“We were thinking about picking someone involved in sports and everyone we talked to kept suggesting Jeff,” Price said. “His name kept coming up and everyone talked about how great and financially stable the league became because he was commissioner.”
Sotland said he was honored by the grand-marshal designation.
“I’m very appreciative of the selection,” he said. “I’m happy to be a part of Pride and I’m really looking forward to a great event this year.”
Price said that, like Sotland, Jacobs was chosen for her long commitment to community work.
“There are really only a few youth centers in the whole country, and The Attic was Carrie’s vision and personal mission. She’s done so much for young people and she’s sincere about it,” Price said. “It’s never been about a job for her, it’s about helping young people. This grand-marshal award is way overdue for Carrie.”
Jacobs will share the float with two of the youth from The Attic, who were chosen as Youth Grand Marshals: Alex Lopez and Kristen Thomas.
Lopez is a senior at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts and, for the past two years, has been an active member of The Attic’s performance groups, lending his talents to the dance, drag and photography clubs. He was also integral in organizing the agency’s first youth drag show earlier this year.
Thomas is also a senior, at John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls’ High School, and has been involved with The Attic for about a year, participating in the organization’s young queer women’s group and work-ready program, as well as assisting in making banners for the local and New York City Dyke Marches. Thomas also helped produce a PowerPoint presentation on LGBT youth homelessness that will be shown to City Council.
This year’s Friend of Pride award will go to Congressman Bob Brady (D-1st Dist.).
Price said Brady has long been committed to advocating for the LGBT community and was a key figure in helping attain funding for the Pride parade; following city budget cuts in recent years, Brady last year created the Greater Philadelphia Traditions Fund to fuel the production of a number of city parades, and included Pride on the list.
“He included us in the Traditions Fund, and it really meant a lot that he knows that Pride is a tradition for many people in the area,” Price said. “By including us, he put us right up there with the Mummers’ Parade, the Irish parade, the Polish parade. We very much needed to be a part of that fund, and it shows that he really gets the picture. Not only does it help a lot with funding, but it also shows a lot that one of our Congressmen thought to make sure we were included.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].