Warm weekend -- and welcome -- for Chill Out & Proud

Oct. 23—Saturday's sunny weather echoed the sunny disposition to those who gathered at Somerset Community College to celebrate individuality, inclusion and pride.

Somerset's fifth Chill Out & Proud festival attracted a plethora of local love and support — so much so that, as Chill Out's organizer and Executive Director Kat Moses pointed out, the theme for the year was Homegrown Pride.

There was much to celebrate, as this was the first year that Chill Out & Proud was striking out on its own. In years past, the event was organized by PFLAG, the group dedicated to support, education and advocacy for LGBTQPIA+ people.

However, both Moses and PFLAG Vice President Ron Kidd said that the move was made to make Chill Out & Proud its own entity.

The reason, Moses said, was because PFLAG was in need of doing a lot of advocacy and education in the current climate, and so many resources were required for that.

"So Chill Out & Proud became it's own entity, so that we could fundraise separately and build two large teams to support the LGBTQ community in the Lake Cumberland region," Moses said.

PFLAG representatives like Kidd still attended the event and were quick to give support and education. Having such a group of people is important, as Kidd acknowledged when talking about the impact PFLAG and inclusion have had on him.

At one point, Kidd said, "I thought I was the only queer in Somerset." But in the wake of attempts to ask Somerset City Government to make changes to the Human Rights ordinance preventing discrimination against LGBQ+ people — and that attempt failing — the creation of a Somerset PFLAG chapter showed that there were people willing to step up and talk about queer issues.

Kidd said that PFLAG's first meeting in 2020 brought in 57 people, and the organization has grown from there.

And as PFLAG showed it's support for the pride-based festival held Saturday, Moses noted the other community partners and organizations that turned out to provide help and information.

Chill Out & Proud was sponsored by Mindsight Behavioral Health, Applied Behavioral Advancements, Muse Marketing, Embody Yoga & Pilates, Poynter Heating & Cooling, the Back Porch Bestie Podcast, the Penny Royal Podcast, Boone & Jenny Williams, Beverly Yancey and Kidd.

Moses said she appreciated the support and the love the event gets from those community partners. "My gosh, I can't express it. It's a mutual love. We do this from a place of love, and they come and give that love back to us.

"... It's important for us to show the folks that attend our pride event that their community is full of affirming, loving people who want to create spaces of belonging, and so having the agencies show that — Bethany house serves queer folks as well, SAFY recruits foster parents who are queer as well — just showing that they're unique-lived experiences are wanted and desired from those groups is really significant."

The goal for Chill Out & Proud is to both offer a safe place for folks from all walks of life to express themselves and to give support and hope to LGBT+ youth, Moses said.

"A lot of it is about our youth. LGBTQ kids are extremely likely to have suicidal ideations, to experience concern that there's no life outside of whatever theirs is at this time," Moses said. "We prioritize making this environment about love, about building bridges, about community so that those folks see that not only does their community feel that way but they have an adulthood to aspire to.

"... We want our youth to see that they're going to grow up and get gray hair, and they might have a spouse, they might have kids, they might own a home, they might throw a pride [event]. We want them to see the potential for their lives, to give them hope and purpose and give them reasons to stick around with us."

That's also one of the reasons it's so important to have these events close up and face-to-face, Moses said. During the pandemic, the queer community understood the need to follow recommendations from health experts, and opted to hold the event online.

"So we were happy to still have pride virtually, but it does not replace hugging on each other, loving each other, seeing these kids come out and dance, and be completely unabashed with their bodies and who they are. Here we learn about consent. Here we learn about trust and respect. To be able to tangibly touch that and witness it is a magical honor as organizers."

One new aspect to this year's event was the inclusion of a Healing Arts Tent, which Moses said was there for "affirmation that we also think about what ways our community needs healing. ... We can't heal alone in isolation. We heal in a community."

Moses said next year's event is already being planned and will take place on October 26, 2024.

Carla Slavey can be reached at cslavey@somerset-kentucky.com