PARK RIDGE, Ill. (RNS) — In February 2024, the Rev. Carol Hill of Park Ridge Community Church got news that a group of LGBTQ teens who met at Hill’s church wanted to do something for Pride month in June.
Shelley Flener-O’Brien, who had created the group, called Connections, to give LGBTQ teens a safe space to gather and feel supported by adults in the community, reached out to Hill asking if the church could help put on a Pride event. Hill said yes, but added, “It needs to be bigger than just cookies on the lawn.”
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On Thursday (June 5), the second annual Pride in Park Ridge celebration, held in the town’s Hodges Park, outside City Hall, included food trucks, vendors giving out rainbow stickers, speeches from local leaders and a drag show — all considerably more than cookies on the lawn, and all the work of the teen group and five churches in town.
When the teens first asked if a Pride festival was possible in Park Ridge, a quiet suburb of about 40,000 residents near O’Hare International Airport, Hill took the idea to the Park Ridge Ministerial Association, a clergy group in town. Very quickly, First United Methodist Church of Park Ridge, Park Ridge Presbyterian, St. Mary’s Episcopal and St. Luke’s Lutheran jumped on board.
The Rev. Caro …