York Pride Fest 2017 - June 9th-18th
Celebrating diversity and promoting inclusivity in York Region
Our Mission
To organize festivals, events, entertainments and other initiatives which, in the context of sexuality and gender identity, across York Region and beyond, illuminate and celebrate human diversity, captivate the general public, inspire inclusivity and foster harmony and acceptance.
Register As A Volunteer!
Important News!
For our 2017 Pride Parade and Pride On Riverwalk events on June 17th, we have already held two volunteer orientation sessions and we will be holding our third and final session next Sunday 11th June at 6pm. This will be located at the Newmarket Community Centre on Riverwalk Commmons.
If you would like to volunteer for these events, please register as a volunteer and attend the orientation session on Sunday. For the majority of our volunteer positions, volunteers must attend one of our orientation sessions.
Event Volunteers
Cotton candy can be challenging! Event volunteers are our amazing heroes! They assist with the staging of specific Pride events but are not necessarily involved in the planning of those events.
A week or so before Pride Week we run a number of informal training and orientation sessions (with free food and drink) and each event volunteer must attend one of these evening events. These provide an ideal opportunity for our volunteers to get to know each other. At the same time, we share details of our event plans, volunteer roles, some of our policies and important safety information. Lastly, we assign volunteers to individual roles according to their preferences.
Other than participating in this training and undertaking the roles assigned to them during our event, no additional commitment is expected of an event volunteer.
Raising donations is always good
Parade marshals preparing to launch the 2015 parade
The roles of event volunteers include:
  • Setup prior to the event
  • Parade marshalling
  • Parade participation
  • Float decoration
  • Assisting event attendees in various ways
  • Event photography and videography
  • Tidy up and take down after an event
  • Volunteer coordination and team leadership
  • Making new friends and having fun