GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — "Everyone is welcome," said The Reverend Ricardo Tavarez from En Vivo Church in Grand Rapids' Creston neighborhood.
Tavarez and his church community are getting ready to put on the Creston neighborhood's first-ever pride festival this September. He said not only do they want to see their Creston neighbors show up, but they want anyone and everyone to come out and enjoy the event.
"We're hoping for kids and families to get involved, or even just groups of folks that would like to march or be in costume together," said Tavarez.
On Sept. 8, the festival will begin at noon with a small parade. The parade will march around just a couple of blocks according to Tavarez.
"This is the world's smallest gay parade," said Tavarez. "[We're] hoping to have some kids on bikes, maybe some pets and again, just a fun time with a band marching ahead or behind them. It's intended to be small and a bit whimsical."
The festival will keep going until 6 p.m. that Sunday with events like a drag storytime, a kid's dance party, multiple drag shows and more.
Tavarez said the idea for hosting the festival came from a desire to celebrate community and diversity.
"We know that there's a lot of queer folks in this community," he said. "There's a lot of allies. Our church in particular is very focused on being welcoming to the queer community, most of our members are part of the queer community."
So the En Vivo Church partnered with the Creston Neighborhood Association and local businesses to highlight the "up and coming" neighborhood of Creston.
"It's such a cool place to be," said Tavarez. "We just wanted to celebrate that together by doing a small Pride event here."
Tavarez said the word of the festival is getting out, and the response has been overwhelming positivity.
"There's businesses that are very excited that this is happening here, there's neighbors that are excited," he said. "We have the support from the Grand Rapids Pride Center, and so it's just really great to see people excited about doing something like this in our community."
While the community gets excited about the festival, Tavarez said he's most excited to see families come out and enjoy it.
"People just getting to know each other and continuing the phrase, or the motto that we keep in this neighborhood," said Tavarez. "Keep Creston funky."
For a full list of festival events, or if you would like to get involved, you can visit envivochurch.org/crestonrpide.