“I wanted the whole point of it to be us getting to know each other because most of us have only met online.” “The rest of it’s just going to be getting to know each other and socializing,” Tune said. They wanted to focus it as a time for people to learn together, so the first hour features speeches, including keynote speaker Jesse Jorstad of Lake Stevens.
Tune, who founded the SnoCo LGBTQIA+ Collective, started in April working with Franklin and Webber, as well as the city’s Youth Advisory Committee and Diversity Advisory Committee that Tune is part of, on hosting a Pride event in Everett. With uncertainty swirling around in-person gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing was scheduled by spring in Snohomish County. Snohomo Pride Festival ran through 2019, but the pandemic scuttled last year’s event. “I am really privileged to present as straight, whereas a lot of my community members don’t have that,” Webber said. That was one reason she got involved in helping plan Everett Pride Picnic in the Park, scheduled for noon to 3 p.m. Nichole Webber, an executive project coordinator in Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin’s administration, said her friends, who don’t present themselves in gender-conforming ways, have been targets of derision when passersby remark, “What is that?” or “What is it?”