MANSFIELD, Ohio — Participants trekked a mile in a pair of high heels along the B&O Bike Trail during the Mansfield Gay Pride Association’s High Heel Walk on Saturday.
The walk was held to help raise money for the Mansfield Gay Pride Association’s parade/festival on July 25.
Chris Weaver, secretary of the Mansfield Gay Pride Association and head of the high heel walk, said, “The parade will be on Maple Street to Brinkerhoff [Avenue] and it’ll end at South Park, where we’ll have our festival. We’ll have performers–just a long list of entertainment. We will have a variety of vendors set up, not only for food and refreshments, but just different companies that wanted to come and promote their businesses.”
The July parade starts at 11 a.m. and the festival will immediately follow.
Weaver said this event will be Mansfield’s first gay pride event.
“We felt that this was so long overdue because we have a pretty good gay community here in Mansfield,” he said.
In addition to Saturday’s walk, he said they’ve held a variety of fundraisers at Sami’s Bar in Mansfield, which he described as a gay-friendly bar. “That’s where a lot of our fundraising has been going on so far,” he said.
Annette Cole, one of the high heel walk participants, said she wanted to participate in the walk because “I have a lot of friends who work and go to Sami’s Bar and I wanted to support them,” she said.
Leah Giauque also wanted to show her support Saturday by participating in the walk. She said it’s important for people to have equal rights, regardless of their sexual orientation. “I think people should be able to marry who they want,” she said.
Weaver said the Mansfield Gay Pride Association meets every Sunday. To learn more about the organization, visit their Facebook page.
