February is the shortest month, but it has become a time for Worcester Pride to announce plans for the new year. For the fourth year, Worcester Pride will have its Farewell to February celebration at the home of former Pride President John Trobaugh and Jeroan Allison. Pride kicks off the new year by announcing a full calendar of events, as well as offering a way to shake off the cold!

In 2017, Worcester Pride begins its 42nd year. One of the ways Pride has had an impact is through our local government. At each Pride event, Pride does its best to get community leaders, elected officials of all affiliations and candidates for office to participate and hear the voices of the LGBTQ community. Last year, Pride had Congressman Jim McGovern, State Sens. Harriet Chandler and Mike Moore, and Reps. John Mahoney, Dan Donahue and Jim O’Day participate in the Farewell to February event. In addition to our state elected officials, we had Mayor Joe Petty and City Councilors Morris Bergman and George Russell.

Pride is a force for good. I am proud that we helped shine a light on the Municipal Equality Index, which was 55 percent in 2013 and became (and is still) 100 percent. This change was only possible with the action of our City Manager Ed Augustus and his team, as well as Mayor Petty and the city council. As Pride president, I had a series of meetings highlighting the easy and more difficult wins. As an extension of this effort, the city manager created two key liaison positions, one to the police department and the other to the city manager’s office. This year, we welcome a new LGBTQ liaison for the Worcester Police Department, Officer Sharon McQueen. The city manager’s office liaison is still Jayna Turchek, Esq., who is also the director of the Office of Human Rights. Since the creation of those offices, the city manager has continued to work to make Worcester even more inclusive and, this past year, created a new position of chief diversity officer and hired Dr. Malika Carter in this position. Dr. Carter is distinctly a friend of Pride.

We invite the community and Worcester’s leadership and all the LGBTQ community supporters to join together to plan out the new year on Feb. 24 for our annual Farewell to February celebration. We gather as a fundraiser, but also to hear what the community chose as a new theme and logo for 2017. It is an important event, and our leadership recognizes it. Please join us!

For more information, visit worcesterpride.org or pride’s social media pages.

By John Trobaugh