Today Ferndale Pride organizers announced via Facebook that due to an "abundance of caution," the previously rescheduled event will be canceled for 2020.
"With pride in our hearts, we sadly announce the cancellation of Ferndale Pride 2020. We had been hopeful that Ferndale Pride would take place in September. However, we have decided to exercise an abundance of caution and not bring 20,000 people together and put people at risk for COVID-19. The City of Ferndale, Ferndale Community Foundation and Ferndale Pride want to do our part to keep you and your families healthy," wrote event organizers.
Julia Music is the event chair for Ferndale Pride. She said that even though the event is being pushed to 2021, those interested in supporting Pride and its sponsors can do so in various ways.
"We are still trying to fundraise enough so that we can give money to our organizations. We've been doing all sorts of things to try and do that so that people can donate to us, and then we also have six organizations that we work with: Affirmations, Ferndale Community Foundation, Transgender Detroit, Transgender Michigan, Gender-identity Network Alliance and Matrix Human Services MAC Health," Music said. "Those are other organizations that people could directly donate to, to help them continue the work they do. Of course, there's others in the area, too. We're very lucky to have lots of amazing LGBTQ organizations."
Music said she was glad to learn that despite cancellation, the majority of already registered volunteers are still interested in doing their roles in 2021.
"We have a lot of our main volunteers who are actually continuing on, even if they planned for this to be their last Pride because they want one more," Music said. "There are volunteer opportunities online still for next year, and people can still sponsor [Ferndale Pride]."
Read the full cancellation announcement here:
