Mountain Pride to host ‘Big Gay Give Back Day’ Saturday afternoon

Eagle County’s LGBTQ group is hosting another “Big Gay Give Back Day” on Saturday, calling all LGBTQ community members and allies to volunteer with United Way in Edwards.

Formerly Eagle County Pride, the group recently changed its name to Mountain Pride to be more welcoming to LGBTQ community members from surrounding counties, the group’s president Madison Partridge said Tuesday.

“We just want to embrace, strengthen, and celebrate the diversity of LGBTQIA communities across the mountains of Colorado,” Partridge said.

Mountain Pride has expanded beyond the initial entity behind Eagle County’s annual Pride in the Park celebration — breaking news, this year’s festival will be held on June 18.

The group now provides educational opportunities and training to local allies, schools and businesses as well as a variety of peer support groups offered in partnership with Eagle Valley Behavioral Health. The group’s latest project is a new community gender and sexuality alliance or GSA.

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Typically, GSA groups are formed at schools, companies or on college campuses but this one is open to people of all ages, sexualities and gender identities, Partridge said.

“A GSA is a group that unites our LGBTQIA community and allies to build community…and discuss issues that are happening in our community or projects or anything that we want to do to support our community or specifically our LGBTQIA community,” Partridge said.

Much of the group’s mission centers around building relationships and making change that lifts up the LGBTQ community and, with them, the entire community, she said. This is where the Big Gay Give Back Days come in.

Mountain Pride’s first Big Gay Give Back Day was held on Sept. 25 when community members came together to support Mountain Valley Horse Rescue in McCoy.

Since then, Partridge and vice president Orlando Ortiz have tried to host or share volunteer opportunities through their Facebook page every month or so, they said.

In November, the group promoted a volunteer opportunity to support The Community Market, a local food assistance program run by the Eagle Valley Community Foundation. In December, they supported a community sock drive held by Mountain Youth to provide free socks to local youth to keep them warm in the winter.

As the spread of the omicron variant brought a steep rise in COVID-19 cases, it has been difficult to host an in-person opportunity safely, Ortiz said. Mountain Pride is looking forward to getting back into the swing of things this month.

“We’re really excited to really be going back to in-person events now that the amount of COVID cases are finally coming down,” Ortiz said in an interview Tuesday.

So, the latest Big Gay Give Back Day will take place on Saturday, Feb. 5, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the United Way of Eagle River Valley, Ortiz said. Volunteers will be assisting the organization in moving its “youth closet” across the street to its new location in the Northstar Campus in Edwards.

“In the last year and a half, they’ve served over 800 families and 2,000 children by giving free services, clothes and toys to support community members,” Partridge said. “They’re an incredible organization doing things for so many people in the valley.”

The youth closet and toy chest offers clothing and toys to low-income youth and their parents at no cost to them, Ortiz said.

The youth closet was closed this week during the relocation, but is typically open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. as well as Monday evenings from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Anyone interested in volunteering with Mountain Pride this Saturday must sign up through a registration link on the event’s Facebook page, which can be found by searching “Big Gay Give Back Day.” Volunteers should wear comfortable clothes, closed-toe shoes and must be able to carry and lift 20 pounds.

If you are having trouble viewing the link, reach out to Mountain Pride at eaglecopride@gmail.com.