OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The Heartland Pride Parade brought thousands of people downtown in celebration for the annual LGBTQ+ pride parade. People were treated with parade floats from several different organizations and much more fun.
"No matter what your sexuality, race, gender, identity," Charlotte Blevins said. "No matter who you are. This is a place where you can come, that's public, and feel safe."
That was exactly how Blevins felt attending this year's Heartland Pride Parade, Saturday. It was a sea of pride colors down the Capitol District, downtown. Many lined the streets to celebrate what it means to be them.
"The pride parade is not just for LGBTQ+ people," Ryan Richey said. "It's for everybody. You're going to see everyone out there. It doesn't matter if you're White, Black, Asian, straight, gay. Nobody cares. We're all here. We're family. We support each other. That's what we need to do," he said.
The parade featured many organizations from the fire department to LGBTQ+ organization Omaha ForUS to even our own KMTV 3 News Now crew.
"Oh my god, it was so full of life and energy. It was amazing," Jamie Harvey said.
For Harvey, it's personal. Two years ago, they were roller skating in the pride parade. A team from the Omaha Roller Derby, also in the parade, noticed and recruited them to join their team. They say it's been a blast ever since.
"Omaha Roller Derby is such a great community. You don't have to be queer to be in roller derby, but there's a large concentration of queer adults that you can make friends with. It's fantastic. It's such a team, community, lifestyle. It's great," they said.
Saturday, Omaha Roller Derby once again participated in the pride parade and the organization is always looking for new members. The festivities didn't stop at the pride parade. They continued with the pride festival that featured different vendor booths at CHI Health Center and several nationally known performers.
"I'm looking forward to doing these skating demos. We're trying to get more people interested in roller derby so we're doing skating demos. I'm excited to walk around and see all the fun vendors, to see queer people making stuff for queer people," Harvey said.
Although the festivities are over, the memories created will live on forever.
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