Pride month launches in Waterloo with unveiling of new rainbow crosswalk

Pride month has officially kicked off in Waterloo. The city celebrated early, holding its Kick-Off event on May 31 on Willis Way next to Waterloo Public Square.

The community was invited to see the new rainbow crosswalk and some artwork that will fly on city light poles in the uptown area.

“Let’s kick off this month by recommitting ourselves to building a community where everyone can live authentically, feel valued and are welcomed in our community for being your true selves. So happy Pride month everyone,” said Waterloo’s mayor, Dorothy McCabe, during the event.

The rainbow crosswalk Uptown Waterloo was vandalized during Pride month last year. The city committed to restoring it afterwards.

Spectrum’s Executive Director, Scott Williams, told CityNews that Pride month is still about the protest as much as it’s about the celebration.

“It’s great to celebrate as far as we’ve come but we are acknowledging that there is still work to be done,” said Williams.

“As long as these things continue to happen, we need to be more and more visible. That’s the reason that these symbols are there, so that people in the rainbow community can feel like this community does belong to them and that their safe here. Until these symbols stop getting vandalized that hasn’t happened, we haven’t achieved it.”

The Director of the city’s REDI (Reconciliation, equity, diversity and inclusion) team, Divya Handa, helped organize the event and said they won’t tolerate anyone trying to vandalize the rainbow crosswalk again.

“We are here for the community, and so this is important. It means something to the community. So were here to make sure we celebrate that with them.”

Along with the fully restored rainbow crosswalk, painted by Topline Pavement Services, the city also revealed 19 pieces of artwork that will hang from light poles on King St. and Willis Way. All of which are representations of what Pride means to artists in the community.

“Waterloo City is one of the most rapidly growing cities and we want to celebrate that diversity and we want to acknowledge it. We want this event to be our well wishes of lots of love and celebration of that diversity in this community,” said Handa.

The event Friday also had an Indigenous drum circle with members of Willow River Centre.

“We have heard that it is great to have visibility of the two-spirit, LGBTQ2+ community through things like the crosswalk which is a symbol of celebration of the community and then also we heard calls about updating the flag to be more representative,” said Redi team’s anti-racism and social justice advocate, Paulina Rodriguez.

Spectrum will be holding events throughout the rest of the month. A full list of their events can be found here.