Greetings!!!
I hope that everyone is enjoying some aspect of PRIDE this month!! So much locally has been happening…Not just the big cities, but nearby…Canton PRIDE was a HUGE success; Medina had a very successful PRIDE event last week, with more than 200 attending, and on Friday from 5-9pm Wooster is having it’s first PRIDE event! It’s really been great seeing all of this happening nearby!!
Several events coming up for OutSupport…please read so that you can participate!
We’re marching again! OutSupport has regularly marched on the July 4 Parade in Medina, and we will be marching again this year! IF you’d like to march, please arrive at the Medina High School parking lot by 3:30…parade begins promptly at 4:00. Bring a flag or borrow one from OutSupport’s stash (we need them back so we can reuse them in future events). Everyone needs to sign a release form to provide the city, which we will have available at the event.
We’d love to have a great turnout to represent in Medina!
For our LGBTQ+ Youth program this month (July 12 from 6-8pm at River Styx Park) we will be joined by our friends at Journeys! OutSupport was selected by Journeys to provide 20 free skateboards and helmets for the first 20 LGBTQ+ youth to come to the event! They are part of www.candaid.org
and they are very excited to present the skateboards to OutSupport youth and help decorate the helmets and skateboards with stickers they will be providing! Part of OutSupport’s mission statement includes improving health and well-being, so getting outside and moving through skateboarding is a perfect fit! Our Medina County Health Dept. will be on hand to offer other healthful information on several topics, as well! We hope to see you there!!!
Flag recap: For those of you that live in the Medina area, we hope that you were able to see the PRIDE flags all around the Medina Square. It was really a sight to behold! While they came down a few days earlier than anticipated, we are very grateful that they remained on the Square as long as they did. Medina City Council will be discussing the future of our flags flying next year, so we will keep you posted on contacting the council in support of flying PRIDE flags every June going forward! Thank you to everyone who called or wrote to the Mayor to keep the flags flying…we are so grateful!!!
Several other events we will be a part of include Westfield Insurance Pride on the Putting
Green, speaking to the Homerville Methodist church service, Providing our Transgender 101 to the Medina County Health Dept. All Staff meeting, and we had a huge number of visitors to the OutSupport booth at the Pizza Palooza last week! We gave out 100s of flags, stickers, and asked folks to write on a posterboard “I am an Ally because…” with lots of great answers!
We also purchased 2 binders for local teens. Lots of PRIDE in Medina County, and we are happy to be a part of it all!!
SCHEDULE UPDATE!!! For our August LGBTQ+ Youth meeting, we were made aware that this conflicts with back to school events at the area schools. For the LGBTQ+ Youth and Family events, we are switching to Tuesday August 9 from 6-8 at River Styx Park. For our LGBTQ+ Family friendly hikes, we will switch that to Aug. 16 at Hubbard Valley Park. Sorry for the change, but we want to make sure more youth can attend the programs this summer!
Our JULY Family Friendly Hikes will take place at Mugrage Park on July 19 from 6-8pm.
We hope to see you at our events!
One last event in Ohio to make note of: Ohio State University Office for Continuing Education is holding a virtual LGBTQ+ Behavioral Health Summit. CEUs are available. Wednesday, June 29 from 9:00-4:15pm. For more information, please email. cswce@osu.edu
Another note….we will need everyone to continue the good fight to protect LGBTQ+ children, particularly transgender children, here in Ohio. The Legislators are still on break, but we will need every voice in opposition to the harmful legislation that they are proposing. For updates on all of them,
our friends at www.equalityohio.org will keep us all up to date. Thank you for whatever voice you can make. It will make a difference.
Hugs to everyone and Happy PRIDE!
Sandy
she/her