Youth Pride

Youth Pride

Join us throughout June 2025 to celebrate Pride at our Youth Pride festival and Drag Queen Storytime events. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Youth Pride 2025 on June 1 and to all the volunteers and community partners — we couldn’t do it without you!  It was an amazing event. We were thrilled to welcome back our fave queens who have joined us for our festivities since 2018, Sofonda and Wilma, accompanied again this year by DJ PSI. New this year, we were entertained both on stage and roving among the crowd by, “Toronto’s Second Funniest Magician,” Gambit!

Youth Pride wouldn’t be complete without the Resource Village featuring dozens of community service organizations, police, paramedics, the fire department, teachers and more all there to share information and fun activities in support of those who identify as 2SLGBTQI+, their friends, family and allies.

Other activies include:

Living Room Community Art Studio

Sensory space, presented by The Snooze Room

Durham Transit Pride bus

Food Drive for Durham Alliance Outreach Pantry — If you can, please bring a non-perishable food or hygeine item for donation

Food, photo booth, music, dancing and prizes!

Water filling station, bring your own refillable waterbottle

Drag Queen Storytime

Throughout June, we are again partering with all eight Durham Region public libraries to present Drag Queen Storytime featuring stories and songs celebrating diversity and inclusion for children and their caregivers. Some libraries require advance registration, please visit each library’s website for details.

Please visit our Storytime News post for all the times and locations for Drag Queen Storytime. 

We are committed to supporting all children, youth and families, including those from the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. This includes ensuring that our services are affirming and supportive, as well as collaborating with community partners to provide information, services, and events.

In 2018 we launched Youth Pride. With several community partners we hosted a festival featuring entertainment and our first Resource Village, with information booths hosted by dozens of community agencies. We were pleasantly surprised how many families with young children attended, which highlighted the need for events for families with small children. The following year, we launched Drag Queen Storytime in partnership with all eight of the municipal libraries in Durham Region.

We have been asked about why we need Youth Pride and why organizations such as Durham CAS and public libraries are presenting Youth Pride and Drag Queen Storytime.

We are involved because children and parents who identity as 2SLGBTQIA+ need to know that organizations in our communities, and the people at those organizations support, respect and care about them, and will stand up and advocate for them.

We get involved so we can work with fellow 2SLGBTQIA+ advocates and allies to raise awareness and help inform others who are learning about the challenges faced by individuals who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+. We strongly believe that advocacy and education should not rest solely on the shoulders of 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy organizations. We all need to take some responsibility to ensure that everyone is welcomed, loved, respected and empowered.

In addition to our public events, we also have a Live Proud Employee Resource group who provide support to our own staff who may be working with children, youth and families who identify, as well as working to address issues in the workplace to ensure that our own 2SLGBTQIA+ staff are supported and feel safe.

Please see below for a video featuring the Drag Queen Storytime events of 2023 and some additional resources about the need for affirming services for all children, youth and families.