Mission & Vision
Solano Pride Center builds community and provides services for Solano County’s LGBTQIA2S+ people and our allies. Solano Pride Center envisions a community where all LGBTQIA2S+ people live freely and authentically.
Do you get our weekly eBlasts on Wednesday afternoons? If not, or if you need to update your email, follow this link to register for our weekly eBlasts. Look below for some of our latest eBlasts.
Can’t find what you are looking for? Go under the Program button in the menu or go to these links:
Mental Health Resources, https://www.solanopride.org/mental-health-resources/
Support and social groups, https://www.solanopride.org/social-and-support-groups
Senior Programs: https://www.solanopride.org/senior-programs/
Youth Programs: https://www.solanopride.org/youth-programs/
HIV Prevention & Support: https://www.solanopride.org/hiv-prevention-support/
Blood Drives: https://www.solanopride.org/blood-drives/
Volunteering: https://www.solanopride.org/volunteering/
Protests & Advocacy: https://www.solanopride.org/protests-advocacy/
Studies: https://www.solanopride.org/studies/
Regional LGBTQ+ Partners: https://www.solanopride.org/regional-lgbtq-partners/
Events:
Suisun Pride 2025: https://www.solanopride.org/suisun-pride-2025/
Pride Center Events: https://www.solanopride.org/pride-center-events/
Community Events: https://www.solanopride.org/community-events/
Suisun Pride 2024: https://www.solanopride.org/suisun-pride-2024/
• All Pride Month long presentation at the Vallejo Naval Museum* (734 Marin Street, Vallejo). Museum Pride & Transgender exhibit “Pride of Trans Posters”
Proclamations!
• We are still waiting to hear when Vacaville will have one for us.
• Sun, June 22nd the City of Dixon at the beginning of the Vacaville Pride in the Park event, hosted by the Vacaville People’s Forum at Andrew’s Park.
More Pride Events!*
• Sun, June 1st from noon to 6 pm. – Suisun City Pride @ Harbor Plaza (520 Solano Street, Suisun City). See more, including pictures at https://www.solanopride.org/suisun-pride-2025/
• Thur, June 5th from 7:30 to 10 pm Line Dancing supporting SPC and Davis Phoenix Pride! At Ruhstaller Farm, 6686 Sievers Rd. Dixon!
• June 6th @7 pm – Pride Film – Sally! A film about Sally Miller Gearhart (1931-1921) was a Lesbian professor and science fiction writer. (Integrity, 717 Marin Street, Vallejo). Sally Miller Gearhart (1931-1921) was a Lesbian professor and science fiction writer. As an activist Sally was a close colleague of Harvey Milk and worked with him to defeat the Briggs initiative which would have prevented LGBT people from teaching in schools. In the second half of her life Sally retreated to the California redwoods to build a commune with a collective of women. The award winning documentary SALLY features archival footage of her political action and personal footage from the land.
• June 7 @ 7 pm – Pride Night at the Museum* Dance & Museum Fundraiser – (734 Marin St., Vallejo). Cancelled due to illness
• June 8th @12 pm – VGN Pride Picnic – (Alden Park, Mare Island) FB Link. If you are able to help with setup for the 2025 Solano County Pride Picnic by Vallejo Gay Network Sunday morning, Please DM Tom Bilbo.
• June 10th @ 6:30 pm – Aging in Pride with SPC & Carquinez Village – (Benicia Library, 150 East L Street) FB Link
• June 11th from 9 am to noon – Gen Silent and Cultural Competency Training for those serve LGBTQ+ Seniors(Joseph A Nelson Community Center, 611 Village Dr, Suisun City) register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gen-silent-a-documentary-film-community-panel-discussion-tickets-1384448014279?lang=en-us&=&%3Blocale=en_US&%3Bview=listing
• June 11th @5:30 pm – LGBTQ Pride Book Club – Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl at (Alibi Book Shop, 324 Marin St., Vallejo)
• Thur, June 12th at 6-9 pm – Pulse Night Club Vigil at Vallejo Naval & History Museum (734 Marin St. Vallejo). Link
• June 13th @ 5 pm – Downtown Vallejo Artwalk Pride Take Over! Come out with your pride gear on and let’s show up!
Next up?!?
June 14th from noon to 7 pm!
Solano Comes OUT!
with our own Queer stage at the Solano County Fair!
• Sat, June 14th at 12 pm – 7 pm – “Solano Comes OUT” @ Solano County Fairgrounds (900 Fairgrounds Dr., Vallejo) exhibitors can email will@Solanopride.org for more info. Want to learn more about the performers? Go here:
https://www.solanopride.org/solano-comes-out/
A day of unity, joy, and celebration at the Fairground’s Village Stage including these amazing performers, with DJ Carlos Penavar keeping the beat going!!!!
- Welcome from Host Amelia Need Moore!
- Galvanize – Vallejo’s newest metal band
- Ryder Knightly Drag King
- Wonder Dave – Comedian from SF
- Solbux Drag Queen
- Chance McCauley – Vallejo Musician
- Ana Flaxis Drag Queen
- Xavier Toscano – Vallejo Singer/Dancer
- Welcome from Host Angel Fox – Vallejo Trans Rapper
- Chai Angea Drag Queen
- Irene Tu – Comedian from LA & SF
- Ling Ling Drag Queen
- Nathan X Moody Band 1st set – 7 piece band from SF
- Startlight Erotica Drag Queen
- Nathan X Moody Band 2nd set
- Finale with KOKKO CHANEL RO-YAL as Mizz Grace Jones!
Of course, DJ Carlos will keep the party going in between these great regional acts! Don’t miss it! This serves in many ways as Vallejo Pride, so we hope to see you there!
There is still room for LGBTQ+ friendly exhibitors and vendors! This link will work until June 8th! There are also slots for food and drink vendors with the same deadline
• Sun, June 15th at 10:00 am, Will McGarvey will be tabling and sharing a brief Pride greeting on behalf of Solano Pride Center at the Unity of the Valley Spiritual Center, 350 N Orchard Ave, Vacaville.
• June 15th @ 1 pm – Sunday Funday Pride Dance and Party at the Rellik Tavern, (726 First Street, Benicia) hosted by Benicia LBTQIA Network. FB Link
• Sun, June 22nd at 10:00 am, Will McGarvey will be sharing the Homily (brief Pride message) during the Pride Mass at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, 300 West St, Vacaville
• Sun, June 22nd from noon to 3 pm – Pride in the Park by Vacaville People’s Forum at Andrew’s Park, (614 E. Monte Vista Ave, Vacaville) FB Link
• Sun, June 22nd at 4 pm – Interfaith Pride Service at Community Presbyterian Church Vallejo (2800 Georgia St, Vallejo)
• June 23rd at 6:30 pm, How To Be An Ally (Benicia Library, 150 East L Street) FB Link
• Thur, June 16th from 6:00pm – 7:30pm Celebrate Pride Month with Drag Karaoke at the Fairfield Civic Center Library, in the Becker Balmer Meeting Room (1150 Kentucky St., Fairfield). Hosted by drag performer Hennessy Williams, who will also be performing a special drag number during the evening. Celebrate Pride Month by dressing up in your most fabulous drag outfit to belt our your favorite tune during an evening of Drag Karaoke. The reigning Mx. NorCal Quing Pageant winner, Hennessy Williams, will provide both hosting duties and perform a special number for the event. Registration required: Show the community just how amazing you are!
• Sun, June 29th at 10:00 am, Will McGarvey will be sharing the Sermon for Pride Sunday at Community Congregational Church UCC in Benicia, at 1305 W. Second Street, Benicia
• Sunday, July 6th from 1-6 pm – Pride Month AfterGlow* – Benicia LGTBQIA Post Pride Month Party (+Christina’s Birthday) at Baxter’s Restaurant, 280 First Street, Benicia. FB Link
*Denotes changes have been made to that event…
Letter from the Executive Director:
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
Dear friends,
Sunday, June 2nd will go down in history as the largest Pride event in Solano County history. With the City of Suisun as Cosponsor, we received the Proclamation there again, and had supportive words from the City Manager and Mayor Alma Hernandez and Mayor Pro Tim Jenalee Dawson! Even State Senator Chris Cabaldon stopped by and shared how he is fighting for us all in Sacramento! Auntie Jeriann Guzman from Solano Serenity Center helped with an opening recognizing our Indigenous siblings.
We had over 80 vendors and exhibitors sharing their tasty food and wares, and as people came and went, the only issue we had was that it took some time for people to find parking and make it down to Harbor Plaza. We estimate that 6,000 people made it there that day! We even heard of folx who came from the City by ferry made it to Pride with us that weekend!
Bella Aldama & Myles Weber kept the program flowing as hosts, and kept the party going! Many thanks to Aaron Sencil and Vince Tanciongco (formerly on the board) and all our volunteers for keeping us organized, and ready to take one of the dressing rooms down when the wind picked up! We posted more pictures at the Pride website!
Tender moments during the day included when the family and friends of Cezar Falconitin remembered him on what should have been his 48th birthday at Sunday’s Pride event.
Gone too soon! Read more about it at this article.
The other tender moment was when John Harter, owner of Waterfront Comics was surprised to receive the Hetero Hero Award this year for his standing up for out community online and in person, making Suisun City the welcoming place it is! Thanks to all our sponsors and vendors with your business and personal thanks for supporting 2025 Suisun Pride! Check out more about our Sponsors and others at the Digital Program for the Day!
Will McGarvey
Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
Dear Friends,
As we prepare for Suisun Pride weekend, I wanted to write a few words for the broader community. Based on some of the sharing at last night’s City Council meeting in Vacaville, there seems to be some misunderstandings about what Pride is all about.
We come together in June because one of the defining events in our history occurred June 28, 1969 – The Stonewall Inn Riot – where Trans women of color fought back against the police brutality they had been experiencing for years. It was a moment where our community found its collective power to fight back, and demand the civil rights being withheld. It was about reclaiming our dignity in a world that only offered us shame. It is still not about making ourselves out to be more than anyone else, but demanding our equality. That’s why it is called Pride.
Many even forget our own local and regional history, such as Vallejo being the “Gay Town” in the Bay Area before the Castro became the “Gay Neighborhood” where Cary Grant and Liberace had homes, there were 5 gay and lesbian bars, and with Mare Island still a going concern then, many more local jobs and LGBTQ service members created community in their own ways.
We also often forget to include the 1966 Compton Cafeteria riots, our own regional historic tradition of resistance. Architect Chandra Laborde said this about the zoning in a request to create the Trans District in the Tenderloin neighborhood. “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot site is significant to San Francisco’s trans and queer community due to its history of resistance to unjust criminalization and the repression of trans lives.” Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker released a documentary in 2005 that dove into the events named Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. Following this, in 2017, blocks around the building were named “Compton’s TLGB District,” in commemoration of the incident and became the nation’s first transgender historic district — Compton was subsequently dropped from the name in 2020.
Despite the Trump administration’s desire to take us back to those days with his repressive policies, Pride is proof we are here, we will continue to be Queer, and we won’t go away. If bricks are needed, we know how to fight back, but choose to do so peacefully through our parades, festivals and presence.
Want to learn more about our local history? Check out these articles.
• San Francisco Activists Want to Reclaim the Site of Historic Compton’s Cafeteria Protest
• Ladies In The Streets: Before Stonewall, Transgender Uprising Changed Lives
• Tonight at Compton’s Cafeteria,
• History will be made… a play about it going on now in SF.
Have you seen our latest video for Suisun Pride? Check it out here! Share it with all your besties…
Learn more about Suisun Pride 2025 here! Includes all of the proclamations, flag raisings, and other events around the region, including Solano Comes OUT on Saturday, June 14th from noon to 7 pm at the Solano Fairgrounds!
Did you know that you could make a whole weekend of Suisun Pride this year?
It’s been real hard for us to plan any after parties for Pride in the past, so we are pleased to have a Pre-Pride Drag show on Friday, May 30th from 9 pm to midnight at the Marina Lounge. Come make a weekend out of Pride! Party responsibly.
We have also compiled a list of LGBTQ owned or friendly businesses with some fun ideas for you, your family and friends to participate in throughout the region! From wineries to spa days, good eats and fun for the family! Check out the links on our website or download the pdf here. We have since learned Pizza
You may also wish to take the train to Pride, as it is in walking distance to Harbor Plaza and a couple of hotels!
It is Pride Proclamations season around the county! We appreciate the cities that provide proclamations of June as Pride Month, especially the City of Vallejo this week that was very honoring of our community and all of the LGBTQ+ groups in the city as they remind their citizens that we are worthy of dignity and respect. There will also be flag raising and more events that we are still curating for Pride month!
Here’s the poem Board Chair Brigid Reilly shared that night for those who are asking for it:
Pride poem
We are!
I am me, I am they. I am one with everything. We are all splendidly different. We all deserve love. We are all real. We are here. We’re not going back. We’re creating this now and look how beautiful we all are! look at us supporting each other. Look at us championing each other, teaching and learning from each other, we know how to treat each other. We here right now see it, feel it, we will continue to create it. We will continue to be ourselves. We will continue because we deserve it. We deserve love in all It’s wondrous imaginations! All its colors of the rainbow and all it’s gorgeous Diversity, amazing creativity, and most of all love, respect, honor, dignity, decency, and truth. This is how we create our reality of unconditional love and acceptance and support because we know we ARE LOVE!
Brigid Reilly
It is also Vacaville City Council season! We grieve that Mayor John Carli has continued to hide behind the policy he got passed about city proclamations that discriminates against our community. There was great comments at the meeting you can watch here. Later in the meeting, Vice Mayor Sarah Chapman who tried with other council members to get the Mayor to allow a proclamation, and the city council will be meeting to discuss the policy itself at a future meeting (see the video linked above at 4:52:00 to see that conversation).
We aren’t the one’s being divisive. We are attempting to make Vacaville safe for our community, especially since these conversations increase the violence against us. Thanks to the 4 council members who voted to reconsider the polity, including Sarah Chapman, Greg Ritchie, Michael Silva and Jeanette Wylie.
Media links:
• Mayor Carli will again reject pride proclamation
• Vaca Council to revisit Pride proclamation, policy after heated debate
• Solano Pride Leaders react to controversy
Want to help us raise funds for the Center?
Can you spare a few dollars to help keep the Center open during these trying times? LGBTQIA2S+ Centers across the state are experiencing a drop in donations, and your support is crucial to help us continue delivering the life-saving services our community depends on.
We at Solano Pride have noticed that we have received $20,000 less in donations from the community over the last six months since the election than the previous years. We are recognizing that the uncertainty since then has definitely affected giving for our life-sustaining programs. If you are in a place to share financially right now, we definitely need your help right now. You can even set up a monthly donation of as little as $5 a month, which helps us more than you can know.
If you are giving to our General Fund to support all of our programming, you can give through our portal on Zeffy at https://tinyurl.com/Give2SolanoPride. Donate today!
| Can you spare a few dollars to help keep the Center open during these trying times? LGBTQIA2S+ Centers across the state are experiencing a drop in donations, and your support is crucial to help us continue delivering the life-saving services our community depends on. If you are giving to our General Fund to support all of our programming, you can give through our portal on Zeffy at https://tinyurl.com/Give2SolanoPride. |
Give Out Day begins May 22nd, but the Big Day you can help us compete with our other sibling LGBTQIA2S+ Centers around the country would be giving to us on June 5th to compete for additional funds and prizes.
Stephan’s Corner – Treasurer & Program Committee Chair
With a Smile, Pride
Solano Pride Community!
Hear ye hear ye, all rise together now, the honorable and beautiful month of June hath arrived! Swear the proclamations, raise the flags, find your wigs honey, it’s time for Pride!
With lipstick and spray paint we put on our shows. From drag to protests, let’s go!
Strike a pose, vogue across the parade route, light a candle to honor the pulse, and then wardrobe change, perform-to get the word out!
A miracle of creativity and resilience, perseverance we carry on, making merry all that is going on! With so much less, and even lesser support and rights, we put on a show to all the world’s delight! Parades and dance and singing so clear, to cheers and accolades all during this time of year.
We remember those we’ve lost and hold those we love dear, we sing and dance with the hope that the end is not near. Being authentic and bold in an often cold world, is the most courageous act accomplished every passing year…
Every morning we put on our costumes, we smile and we entertain, and inside we wonder for whom? Through bravery we carry on, we wage a war to merely exist, and darling we’ll do it all with glitter and seal it with a kiss.
May every passing day in every passing June bring us closer and closer to a time when no one will assume, who we are or whom we love, and instead love us all as welcome friends, loving us all no matter what, just as we are…
And from this maestro to all my carnival barkers, be safe, be bold, live authentic and always carry a brick to remember Stonewall…
Happy Pride!
Stephan Clifford, LCSW
Board Member
Treasurer, Program’s Chair
Stephan@SolanoPride.Org
Next HANDS OFF! Fairfield, every Thursday afternoon from 5:00 to 6:30 pm at the corner of Pennsylvania Street & Travis Blvd. (in front of Garamendi’s office), & June 14th (flag day) back at the County Building at Texas St & Jefferson.
(Sponsored by MobilizeUS, hosted by Azonia Haney, public citizen of Fairfield). Contact Azonia Haney to help make it happen at (503) 419-8469 or handsoff.fairfieldca@gmail.com.
You’re Invited! Celebrate 250 Years Under the Stars and Stripes.
Time: Saturday, June 14, 12 – 1pm PDT
Location: Corner of Jefferson Street and Texas Street, (Under the Flags) 605 Texas Street, Fairfield, CA 94533Flyer attached with details!
To register, see more details, and share, go here: https://www.mobilize.us/freedomoverfascism/event/791514/
We are united against kings leading the US government. The Army’s birthday isn’t about parades or pageantry — it marks the beginning of America’s rejection of kings.
That’s why we say: No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.
Meet at Unity Plaza in front of JFK Library. Gather with your community to rally together on June 14. We will have speakers to address the harms of the crisis we face—and what we’ll do to fight back.
We have found a way to raise money for the Center that doesn’t involved you sending a check or buying a thing!
Thanks to the 25 people who gave responses on HundredX Causes that helped us raise almost $500! We will let you know when you can help again!
https://www.facebook.com/events/2420408431674893
Learn how to better understand, support and connect with your LGBTQ+ family and community! Presented by Solano Pride Center – Hosted by Carquinez Village
TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2024 from 6:30PM – 8:00PM
BENICIA PUBLIC LIBRARY, 150 East L Street
FREE EVENT & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
• LGBTQIA+ Terms and Definitions
• Living Authentically as We Age
• Safe Space Q&A: “Ask us anything!”
How To Be An Ally at the Benicia Library!
Tuesday, June 23rd at 6:30 pm in the Doña Benicia Room!
This Pride Month, we invite you to bring the questions you’ve always wanted to ask of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in a respectful, open environment. Whether you’re new to allyship or looking to deepen your understanding, this interactive Q&A session with a representative from Solano Pride Center offers a chance to learn, connect, and grow.
Here’s the mission and vision for Solano Pride Center:
“Solano Pride Center builds community and provides services for Solano County’s LGBTQIA2S+ people and our allies. Solano Pride Center envisions a community where all LGBTQIA2S+ individuals can live freely and authentically.”
Allies play an important role in making that vision a reality.
All are welcome. Come with curiosity, leave with knowledge. Link
My name is Andrew Tuttle and I am the Director of Education Programming at NAMI San Francisco, a mental health advocacy organization.
Our team is hosting a panel event in June that may be of interest to you and those in your community. We would love to invite you to attend!
Event: Third Annual LGBTQ+ Roundtable: Community Support in a Shifting Political Climate
Date: Thursday, June 26 from 6:00 – 7:30pm PDT. Free, virtual via Zoom webinar.
Registration: Please register via the link below; a flyer is also attached.
https://tinyurl.com/lgbtqevent2025
Panelists: Dr. Chase Anderson, MD, is an Assistant Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New England Journal of Medicine, and other news and journal outlets.Denisse Mendéz, LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Youth Mental Health Manager at the San Francisco LGBT Center. Denisse specializes in working with gender-expansive transitional-age youth and youth of color.
A. Ning Zhou, MD, is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), volunteer clinical faculty at UCSF, and in private practice. At SFDPH, he works at three clinics, including one that serves queer and trans youth. At UCSF, he supervises psychiatry trainees/students and directs the LGBTQ+ Mental Health Area of Distinction.
Thank you in advance for distributing information about this program!
– Andrew
Red Cross Blood Drives come to Solano Pride Center!
Not everyone can give blood…but everyone is eligible to volunteer.
Only 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate, but 100 percent can volunteer to help you host a successful blood drive. Every time you receive a “no” from a potential blood donor, ask him or her to say “yes” to volunteering their time to participate in saving lives. There are many opportunities to engage volunteers—even if it’s only for an hour or as little as 30 minutes. And, there aren’t the restrictions there used to be against our community, so schedule a time to come to the Conference Room off the Main Entrance to the Center’s building, and come out Friday, August 8th between 10 am and 3 pm. Sign up here!
https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/drive-results?zipSponsor=SPBDF
See our new Blood Drives website under Programs in the menu above….
Statement on our Agency’s commitment to confidentiality in our care:
We don’t ask questions of our clients around citizenship or documentation. We never have and never will. We also do not disclose any personal or contact information about our clients without their written permission. If any public agency comes seeking such information, they will be turned away and referred to our legal representation. We are contractually obligated by the County and other funders to keep HIPAA privacy laws and protect the privacy and confidentiality of all of our clients. See our “Notice of Privacy Practices” in our Center, and on the paperwork shared during intake of all counseling and case management services.
Solano Pride Center offers counseling and psychotherapy to the LGBTQ+ community of Solano County.
There are openings available for those who wish to be seen for counseling services right now! We can even talk to you if you just want to make sense of the times we live in. We are able to see clients for up to six months at no cost to clients, helping you make sense of life as a queer person, get support coming out, or deepening your self confidence by talking about your past. Please call our confidential line to make an appointment at: 707-389-4520.
In addition Solano Pride Center is accepting application from Associate Clinicians (AMFT and ACSW) in addition to trainees needing practicum sites who are interested in providing therapy to the LGBTQ community. Please contact our Clinical Director Colin Amato at colin@solanopride.org for more info.
For more Mental Health Resources, https://www.solanopride.org/mental-health-resources/
Social and Support Groups for many sub groups within our community.
To see all of the support and social groups, go under the home button in the menu or go to this link: https://www.solanopride.org/social-and-support-groups
Senior Programs: https://www.solanopride.org/senior-programs/
Youth Programs: https://www.solanopride.org/youth-programs/
HIV Prevention Awareness
Did you know you can get STI testing mailed to your home?
Did you know that PreP and PeP can help you remain HIV negative?
Contact me for more info! Thank you. Cristina Zaldana
Cristina Zaldana
More information now in our HIV Prevention page, under the Programs in the menu above…
Calling All Volunteers!
Calling all volunteers! If you want to be a volunteer at Solano Pride Center, please let us know!
Our next Volunteer Training is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20th at 6 pm on zoom. If you are interested in volunteering, just for special events or on a more regular basis at the Center, please email cristina@solanopride.org with the best times that work for you to be trained. These trainings are necessary for anyone who wishes to volunteer at the Center, in one of our Programs, or even for short term events like our Pride celebrations being planned now! Don’t miss this informative background on how to help, knowing our best practices and Community Agreements!
VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES
See our Volunteer page under the Programs menu above….
Hello Community Vendor or Organization,
Vacaville People’s Forum would like to extend an invitation to you to join us again this year as a vendor or community table at the 5th Annual Pride in the Park 2025, happening on Sunday, June 22, from 12:00–3:00 PM at Andrews Park (614 E Monte Vista Ave, Vacaville, CA 95688). The event will include performances by Drag Queens and Kings, music by DJ Rene Ortiz, food and more!!
Your past participation has helped make this event a meaningful and vibrant celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community in Vacaville, and we’d love to have you back with us this year. At a time when LGBTQIA+ rights and visibility are facing renewed resistance across the country, coming together as a community is more important than ever. Pride in the Park is about joy, resilience, and solidarity, and your presence helps make that possible.
Last year we received a lot of feedback from vendors about the heat and have reserved both sides of the stage and plan to have all vendors on the cement side of the bandshell stage where there is more shade, while the main event will take place on the grass-side. Please see the application form as you can select if you’d like to be placed on the park-side of the stage or the grass-side. The FaceBook event can be found here.
If you’d like to join us as a vendor and/or contribute as a sponsor to help support the event, please fill out the application here as soon as possible or by Saturday, May 17 so that we can reserve your spot and include your organization in our promotional materials. Space is on a first-come, first-served basis.
If you are unable to join us or would also like to sponsor the event, please see our event Sponsorship options which can also be found here.
For more information, please feel free to reach out at vpf@vvpeoplesforum.org! Thank you for your continued support and we hope to see you there!
In community,
Mary Vasquez, Chair
Vacaville People’s Forum
Vacaville People’s Forum
www.vvpeoplesforum.org
vpf@vvpeoplesforum.org
Donate: https://givebutter.com/VVPeoplesForum2025
Follow us:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/vvpeoplesforum/
IG: http://instagram.com/vvpeoplesforum
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VacavillePeoplesForum
Ever wondered how to find all of the Queer organizations here in the Bay Area? Well, the Horizon’s Foundation has just such a list!
Here: https://www.horizonsfoundation.org/org-directory/
This amazing training from the Center for Human Development has been rescheduled for July 30th to August 1st.
Need to contact one of our staff? Would you like to drop by to check out a book from our Queer Library? Contact us this way.
If you find yourself in crisis during this time, please call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or our partners at these crisis numbers!
• Trevor Project Crisis Line: 1-866-488-7386
• Trans Lifeline Crisis Number: 1-877-565-8860
• Solano County Mobile Crisis Number: 707-806-0866
• Solano County Crisis Stabilization Service Number: 707-428-1131
Weekly Eblasts – Links below:
Do you get our weekly eBlasts on Wednesday afternoons? If not, or if you need to update your email, follow this link to register for our weekly eBlasts.
Thanks to all of our Donors for the Silent Auction at the Poetry Slam and beyond! Please do shop at these Gay owned businesses, and our supportive Allies!
Solano Pride Center
The Board of the Solano Pride Center shares our sadness that the Mayor of the City of Vacaville continues to use his position to give cover for the discrimination many in our community experience there. Like we did for every city, our Executive Director sent proposed language to use in a proclamation that actually gives an account of our history of discrimination and need for civil rights protections from our elected leaders.
This year we sent the request early, and attempted to hear back when the proclamation would be shared, and have not had that time confirmed. In preparing the so-called “Proclamation,” the Mayor’s office produced a document to be signed by the Vice Mayor that was similar to those of previous years, but with no proclamation that June 2024 would be Pride Month in the City of Vacaville. We also noticed a change to the text, including the deletion of the phrase “celebrate and build”, which was changed to “while building,” without an actual declaration of Pride Month. The language is so vague that it could apply to any other community, without addressing the violence members of our community experiences every day. Every other city we have received Proclamations from have adapted the language we have offered, but has still included the historical portions because that was the point. The language the Mayor used further white washes the history of America as if our country wasn’t created with the legality of slave states and the second class citizenship of women.
Furthermore, our biggest frustrations have centered around the lack of notification of when the flag was to be raised, as we experienced in almost every other city of the county today. Because we were not notified of the time of the flag raising, our community was denied the opportunity to be in attendance and participate to mark the moment. We understand that the Pride Flag has been raised on the School Street site, and will remain except for a day to honor the Army on June 14th (veterans comprise a significant portion of our community). Though we sent our request to the whole City Council on April 17th, we have had to ask for responses rather than a friendly sharing of events. The lack of communication feels intentional.
The erasure of our community happens on a daily basis, and the policies coming out of the Mayor’s office continues to discriminate against our civil rights and treats us like second class citizens. We call upon the good people of Vacaville to remind their Mayor that his oath of office is to serve all of the city, and not just those of his particular religious tradition. Leading Vacaville together means including your LGBTQ+ family and protecting their civil rights.
Will McGarvey
Executive Director
On behalf of the Solano Pride Center’s Board of Directors, June 2024