The city’s pride of lions will be joined by a different type of pride next weekend when the nation’s first zoo welcomes back LGBTs and allies.
The Philadelphia Zoo’s third annual Pride Day will run 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 15, with a bevy of new activities and programs to entertain and educate community members and supporters of all ages.
Andrea Rodgers, the zoo’s manager of events and community partnerships, explained the LGBT community day began in 2009 after zoo board member Deb Francesco, who also sits on the William Way LGBT Community Center board, raised the idea of LGBT outreach.
“Deb’s a big supporter and was talking about how we should do something so the community knows what the zoo has to offer and that we’re an open and aware organization. Everyone was really supportive and our president felt strongly that we should do it, and from that point on, we just went right ahead with the idea.”
The event has attracted about 600 guests each year, with participants representing all facets of the community.
“We’ve been happy to see a lot of families come with parents or children who identified as LGBT. But we’ve also seen a lot of other groups, like college students,” she said. “What we’re offering and our educational programming that day isn’t just for families with kids. A lot of people think, ‘I have to borrow someone’s kids to go to the zoo,’ or ‘I haven’t been to the zoo since I was a kid,’ but we have so many things going on in terms of education and conservation that’s really of interest to everyone.”
The zoo has been working on developing its Pride Day programming the past two years, and Rodgers said staff approached the third year with a “fresh, new energy” that resulted in several introductions to the lineup.
Through the day, live entertainment will be provided by reggae group The Broozers Band, as well as Spiral Q Puppet Theater and the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus.
Guests of all ages can also participate in a daylong, zoo-wide scavenger hunt that fuses fun with learning — featuring little-known facts about homosexuality in the animal kingdom and achievements of LGBT leaders in the zoological field.
As the first zoo in the country, Philadelphia is known as a trailblazer, and Rodgers said she got calls from three other zoos after the first LGBT community event in 2009, all expressing interest in launching similar events.
One of the best pieces of advice Rodgers said she had for them was to partner with groups within the LGBT community. For the upcoming event, the Philadelphia Zoo has worked with the William Way, Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus, The Attic Youth Center, Sapphire Fund and PGN.
“We didn’t want to just try to put on something for the community without actually working alongside people in the community to execute it,” Rodgers said. “Like we do with a lot of the community initiatives we work on, we try to foster relationships with people in the community as our resources because this event isn’t about us, it’s about the community that we’re serving.”
Rodgers said organizers from other zoos had concerns about possible backlash from their members, an issue that has not arisen at the Philadelphia Zoo.
“We’ve been very vocal about it and want to make sure everyone knows that they’re welcome here. Some of what we have planned for this year is making sure that all people know that they’re welcome and we hope people who aren’t members of the LGBT community can take part in the activities and network and engage with everyone. There’s going to be a lot of great energy and we expect people to just have a really fun day.”
Tickets to the event are $13, discounted from the usual $18. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.philadelphiazoo.org.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].
