In 2024, Atlanta Pride launched its Pride Across the Peach State initiative, a grant program focused on uplifting, supporting, and amplifying the efforts of local Pride organizations across Georgia.
Thirteen organizations – Atlanta Black Pride, Carrollton Rainbow, Compassionate Atlanta, Cultivate Savannah, Debra Smith Wellness Center and Colgay Pride, Macon Pride, Out On Film, Rome Georgia Pride, Savannah Pride Center, Smyrna is Fabulous, South Georgia Pride, Southern Fried Queer Pride, and Statesboro Pride – received a total of $50,000 to support their Pride events. On Feb. 5 and 6, grantees convened with Atlanta Pride to build off this support through networking and community building.
The event brought Pride organizations from across Georgia together for updates on LGBTQ+ legislation from Bentley Hudgins, the Georgia State Director of the Human Rights Campaign; a discussion on supporting local LGBTQ+ businesses with Andi Monroe, the Executive Director of OUT Georgia Business Alliance; a panel covering how to engage the media with Atlanta News First; small group discussions and networking opportunities; and more.
“We’re really proud of being able to support these grassroots organizations that are really at the heart of what Atlanta Pride does – and what Pride is in general,” Steven Igarashi-Ball, the Director of Communications and Community Engagement at Atlanta Pride, told Georgia Voice. “This is a unique opportunity for us to get everyone together… It’s an awesome opportunity for networking, for knowledge sharing, and for community building. I think right now that community building is something that is desperately needed.”
For younger organizations like Rome Pride, the support from Atlanta Pride has been “life-changing,” the organization’s Vice President Hill Sawyer told Georgia Voice. The rural Pride organization is only in its fourth year of hosting an official festival.
“The Pride Across the Peach State grant helped us be able to continue our work and actually expand our week to meet more of the community,” Hill said. “From our experience, rural Pride has been life-saving for us and for the community in general. Without smaller cities doing something to show inclusivity and create safe spaces and affirming bodies and people, you may never make it out of your small town – and you may not make it in your small town.”
Rome Pride used last year’s grant funds to expand their festival and relocate to a bigger park, allowing them to attract more people and therefore more support – exhibiting how the Pride Across the Peach State grant creates the foundation for further growth.
“A lot of these smaller organizations don’t have the same resources and face a lot greater challenges in the areas that they are – many are in more conservative, more rural areas, and so their existence is an act of protest and resistance, and we want to support them in that,” Igarashi-Ball said. “‘We need to be able to get together and give each other support, because you can’t pour from an empty cup.”
For older organizations like Savannah Pride Center, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of its festival last October, the funding allows the organization to grow in their entertainment offerings and become “an even more inclusive festival,” Charlton Claxton told Georgia Voice.
“The love and support we get by growing our community, it makes us able to withstand storms,” Claxton, an organizer with Savannah Pride Center, said. “The deeper our roots, the bigger storms we can withstand.”
The funds supporting Atlanta Pride’s Pride Across the Peach State grant come from community support; to become a sustaining donor, visit atlantapride.org.
