In 2008, for the first time ever, York Pride Fest and other York Region LGBT organizations marched in the Toronto Pride Parade to represent our region's gay and lesbian community.

Last year, we travelled the parade on a float and throughout the pride weekend we hosted a community booth on Alexander St in downtown Toronto.

Once again this year, at the 30th Toronto Pride Festival, we will be participating in the pride parade. And, this year our community booth will again be in open throughout the pride weekend (July 3rd/4th) and located on the east side of Church St, just north of Isabella.

For the pride parade it looks likely that we will only have a marching contingent this year, although there is still a small possibility to us having a vehicle or float as well.

If you would like to join us in the parade, you can either:
- come along to our booth and meet up with us there before 12.30
- join us after 12.30 (but preferably no later than 1.30) at our parade line-up slot on Bloor St. This will be near to the intersection with Jarvis and we will be lining up in slot 'I2.5' which should be chalked on the road - but please ask one of the parade marshals for directions if you have any problems finding us.

The parade starts from the intersection of Church/Bloor at 2pm, and the position of our group will probably be approximately one third way into the parade. This means that we should join into the parade at around 2.45-3pm. The parade route is west along Bloor to Yonge, then south on Yonge to Gerrard and then east on Gerrard to Church. It takes about an hour to travel the length of the parade, so we should reach the end of the parade at Church/Gerrard at around 3.45-4pm. Anyone is free to dress as they please, and most of our contingent with be dressed in regular casual clothes, so exotic costume and flamboyance are both completely optional. And, one great advantage of being in the parade is that it's much more spacious when you're in the parade watching spectators than it is when you're a spectator watching the parade. We recommend that everyone participating in the parade should bring a bottle or two of water, some sunblock and a hat, especially if it's sunny. Lastly, in case you're shy or militant, please be aware that there will be TV coverage of the parade and also that, in order to be eligible to participate in the parade we have make an anti-discrimination declaration and therefore require all participant to abide by this policy.

If you might be interested in helping out with our community booth: This will be located on the east side of Church St, just north of Isabella, and our booth number is B47. We will be setting up the booth at 10am on both Saturday and Sunday and it will then remain open each day until 6pm. Although we would be grateful for your help at any time, ideally we would like people to volunteer for one or more of the following time slots: Saturday 10am-1pm, Saturday 12.45pm-4pm, Saturday 3.45pm-6pm, Sunday 10am-1pm, Sunday 12.45pm-4.30pm, Sunday 3.45pm-6pm. Covering the booth essentially involves chatting with booth visitors and providing them with handouts. And, as we're hoping to have two or three people covering at all times, there's no problem with taking short breaks from time to time.

If you might be interested in volunteering, either to join us in the parade or to help out at our community booth, it would be ideal if you could contact us, to let us know. But if you decide to just turn up on the day, please remember to bring along a note of our booth location and our parade line-up slot (which is 'I2.5'), as well as water, sunscreen and hat for the parade..