Greater Sudbury's 22nd Pride week kicks off today

Sudbury's 22nd Pride week kicks off on Monday, with a lot of support from community partners.

The city's first Pride march was in 1997, when 200 marched in public for the first time in Sudbury to show support and solidarity with the LGBTQ community.

Since that first march, acceptance and support for the community has been growing.

"[It's] really heartwarming because this event is run with the support of the community, right, so we only put on maybe seven of the events but we have over 35, so that's extremely heartwarming that people want towork with us and share resources and just partner to make awesome things happen," said Danielle Valcheff, the chair ofFiert Sudbury Pride.

This year there are about 40 Pride events happening throughout the week. Kicking off the week with the Flag Raising Ceremony at Tom Davies Square onMonday morning,the Pride March is on Saturday at Memorial Park and there's many more activities throughout the week.

"The biggest things that are happening is the full week itself, so there's over 35 events and a ton of different venues, we have a series of partnership events, so those are community groups who are doing those events and then we also haveFiert Sudbury Pride run events," said Valcheff.

For some, they have seen Pride start with that first march in 1997 then watched it grow and evolve into what it is today.

By 2006 we kind of turned it into a very positive experience for the gay community as well as the whole community.- Tom Reid

"I'm really proud to know that the young people who have taken over are making the Pride experience a very positive one for the community, it's like isn't that wonderful," said Tom Reid, who has been involved with Pride for years and was the chair of Pride from 2006 until 2012.

"For some of us old folks that have been around, it's good, we're glad that whatever was done in the past is leading people to feel that they can express themselves openly and safely in the community."

Reid says he's proud to see how much it's grown and how accepted the LGBTQ community is in Sudbury.

"The people that had started Pride originally, by 2006 we kind of turned it into a very positive experience for the gay community as well as the whole community, say 'hey we're here, we're not gonna go away and we're going to be happy to say come and join us and see how we live' and it's just like everybody else," he said.