The Eighth Frederick Pagan Pride Day will take place on Saturday, September 28th, 2024, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. We are currently looking for everything! Vendors, Workshop and Ritual Leaders, Local Groups and Charities, Entertainers, Event Sponsors, and Volunteers. Save the date and drop us a line to become part of this year’s festival!
It is so strange to try to condense all the thoughts, feelings, and excitement of a festival into words. Somehow, it’s never quite enough. (The TL:DR is Volunteers! Performer/Teachers/Leaders! Vendors! Community Representatives! And, our community is goddamn amazing in a storm.)
“Gratitude” is first. Although I am the recognizable, public face of the festival, the Frederick Pagan Pride Day simply would not happen without a huge group of people ensuring that it does so. Our festival takes a team of roughly 30 people to run well, and this year we were blessed with extra help. From community members showing up at Oh-Gods-Why o’clock in the morning to help us make up for lost Friday setup time, volunteers jumping in to lend a hand, offer direction, support “on the clock” staffers, and more, the line between festival attendee and volunteer got VERY blurry at times. To all the helpers, wearing a purple shirt or not, THANK YOU. I can’t run a festival for 600 people by myself. Without *us*, without this wild team of mystical marvels, the festival does not happen.
And, special gratitude to Jeff, who is the co-lead of Frederick Pagan Pride Day. There is an entire world of the festival that I do not have to even think about because Jeff organizes those areas, and it makes all the difference in the world.
Along with everyone who worked so hard behind the scenes are the wonderful folks who provide the content of our festival: our ritual leaders, performers, and presenters. It takes a lot of work to prep an hour-long workshop, provide entertainment in the hot summer sun, or offer an opportunity for spiritual connection and devotion for a group of mostly unknown people. THANK YOU. Our programming was excellent because of your work, dedication, and love. I wish we’d gotten to the last couple offerings of the day – hopefully we can make up that labor to you in a future festival or gathering.
And, no festival is complete without vendors. I’ve been an entertainer and teacher in the Pagan community for a very long time now. As a member of Revel Moon, then Cassandra Syndrome, and now Kindred Crow, I’ve been to a LOT of festivals. One thing I learned over the years is that the vendors truly make the event. If you have a good vendor village, it’s a good festival, and Frederick Pagan Pride Day has an INCREDIBLE vendor village. So much love and gratitude to our vendors! Our vendor village rolls in from every direction – local businesses but also those whose homes are several states away – and each vendor sets up an entire outdoor “shop” in roughly two hours before the festival opens. It’s an insane amount of work, and I am just so grateful to all of you. From crystals and candles to handmade besoms to cauldrons to hand-forged knives to pottery to books to clothing…it’s such an amazing gathering of talented makers and market-folk.
Deep gratitude as well to our community representatives. Among the businesses in the vendor village are booths selling nothing at all but offering outreach for the various organizations they represent. Thank you all so much for your hard work, networking, and outreach at Frederick Pagan Pride Day. Our community is stronger when there are strong friendships among us. This form of connection is some of the most important weaving we do.
“Community” is next. Being in community is easy when everything is going smoothly. The place where a community can truly show its beauty (or its fissures) is when things go sideways, though. The storms held off for most of the day yesterday – we had glorious (hot!) sunny weather til right around 4 PM. Thor just couldn’t hold back any longer and came rolling in FAST. This meant that we needed to get two workshop pavilions with tables and chairs, a stage with full sound system, water filling stations, trash cans, and THIRTY-SEVEN booths off the field FAST amidst high winds and a downpour.
Y’all, I’ve been the lead community organizer of Frederick CUUPS for many years now, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Every volunteer, every community member who wasn’t even supposed to be working yesterday, our siblings in the Wyoming Valley CUUPS chapter, and tons of folks who’d come out as attendees jumped in and made absolute magic happen. It was glorious, loud, soaked, compassionate chaos. And it worked. The many hands helping to carry, pack up, support, and then dry off and clean meant that everyone got out safely and at rapid speed.
I’m sorry that we lost the last couple hours of our festival, but I am weirdly joyous about it as well. It was magnificent to see the greater community come together and work so hard to support and protect each other. To everyone who dropped whatever they were doing to help, THANK YOU. You’re absolutely amazing and I’m so grateful we’re part of the same community.
Our final totals were:
What an exhausting, exhilarating, magical day. Every muscle in my body hurts, but the soul-deep glow more than makes up for it.
Let’s do it again next year. Hopefully without the storms this time 😉
In service and gratitude,
Irene Glasse
Frederick Pagan Pride Day Coordinator
The Seventh Frederick Pagan Pride Day is just around the corner! We’re so excited to see you Saturday, September 9th, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick! Important info below:
Download the mobile-friendly program here.
Admission
Admission is a donation to one of two organizations we are supporting this year. You are welcome to bring an item of non-perishable commercially prepared food (no home canned goods, unfortunately) for The Foodbank Program operated by the Frederick Community Action Agency. This year, Frederick Pagan Pride Day is also supporting Frederick County Animal Control. Donations for the Adoption Center can also be given as admission. FCAC is requesting UNOPENED PACKAGES of canned food of any variety, dry food (Iams is preferred, but they will take any sort), bleach, sponges and Dawn dish soap. Other pet supplies are welcome, but must be UNOPENED.
Parking
Parking is available both on-site and, when that fills, from the Park and Ride lot at the intersection of Elmer Derr and Mount Zion road. A shuttle will be running all day to transport people to and from the overflow parking area.
What to Bring
We have three excellent food vendors this year, but during peak times there can be lines. We always recommend packing snacks just in case. We recommend bringing a camp or other folding chair for attending the workshops and watching performances. There will be water filling stations, so a water bottle is also recommended. Remember to bring some money for our wonderful vendors, cash if you would like to enter the raffle (tickets are $2 each or 3 for $5, and cash only), a hand drum or other percussion if you’d like to participate in the drum circle, and sunblock/rain gear if you need it.
Hail the community! We are so excited to see you on Saturday, September 9th, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick for our SEVENTH Frederick Pagan Pride Day! This year’s schedule is, we believe, in final form.
For workshop and ritual descriptions, click here.
For entertainment descriptions, click here.
For our Vendor Village, click here.
For a listing of Community Groups in attendance, click here.
The Seventh Frederick Pagan Pride Day will take place on Saturday, September 9th, 2023 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. We are currently looking for everything! Vendors, Workshop and Ritual Leaders, Local Groups and Charities, Entertainers, Event Sponsors, and Volunteers. Save the date and drop us a line to become part of this year’s festival!
The 6th Frederick Pagan Pride Day is this Saturday! We are so excited to see you!
In an effort to reduce our environmental impact, we are encouraging everyone to download the mobile version of our program. We will have a limited number of print programs available, but if an electronic version is an option for you, please choose to go paperless.
Click here to download the program.
Admission to Frederick Pagan Pride Day on Saturday, September 17th, is a donation to one of two organizations we are supporting this year. You are welcome to bring an item of non-perishable commercially prepared food (no home canned goods, unfortunately) for The Foodbank Program operated by the Frederick Community Action Agency. This year, Frederick Pagan Pride Day is also supporting Frederick County Animal Control. Donations for the Adoption Center can also be given as admission. FCAC is requesting UNOPENED PACKAGES of canned food of any variety, dry food (Iams is preferred, but they will take any sort), bleach, sponges and Dawn dish soap. Other pet supplies are welcome, but must be UNOPENED.
Frederick Pagan Pride Day is looking for food vendors for our annual outreach festival on Saturday, September 17th. The event includes vendors, entertainment, and workshops, and drew slightly over 650 people in 2019 (our 2020 and 2021 festivals were canceled due to the pandemic). We currently only have one food truck booked for the event and generally try to have at least two to manage the crowds. Our location is outside of town, so there’s nowhere else for festival attendees to go, and our food vendors have historically done very well. Please email frederickpaganpride(at)gmail(dot)com if you’re interested in vending!
It truly takes a village to make a festival happen, and the cost of…well…pretty much EVERYTHING has gone up. One massively important thing we rent every year is PORTA POTTIES! And, these bad boys have nearly doubled in rental costs since the last time we ran the festival (2019).
So here’s what we’re going to do about it.
Has someone really gotten under your skin this year? Got a person, organization, or group you’d like to see covered in poop? Sponsor a Porta Potty and have their name emblazoned on a big sign by the Potties for all to see! The higher your level of sponsorship, the larger the font on the name you send us.
Enjoy our crowdsourced terrible puns:
Sign up to put someone on the official Frederick Pagan Pride Day “Sh*t List” here!
There are also general event sponsorship options available. Frederick Pagan Pride draws upwards of 600 people every year. If you’re looking to get your business, service, or organization in front of a large number of Pagans, our program and website are a great opportunity to do so. Event sponsorships cover all our other costs: signs, programs, first aid personnel, a shuttle service, etc.
Frederick’s sixth Pagan Pride Day will be held on Saturday, September 17, 2022, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. People of all ages and spiritual backgrounds are welcome. The event will include information booths, workshops, live music, vendors and other activities celebrating the Autumn Equinox, a time of thanksgiving in many Pagan traditions.
Admission is a donation to one of two organizations we are supporting this year. You are welcome to bring an item of non-perishable commercially prepared food (no home canned goods, unfortunately) for The Foodbank Program operated by the Frederick Community Action Agency. This year, Frederick Pagan Pride Day is also supporting Frederick County Animal Control. Donations for the Adoption Center can also be given as admission. FCAC is requesting UNOPENED PACKAGES of canned food of any variety, dry food (Iams is preferred, but they will take any sort), bleach, sponges and Dawn dish soap. Other pet supplies are welcome, but must be UNOPENED.
Frederick’s very first Pagan Pride Day in September of 2015 drew over 336 people during the course of the day and raised 331 pounds of food for The Foodbank Program. Frederick’s second annual Pagan Pride Day in September of 2016 drew over 393 people throughout the day and raised 391 pounds of food for The Foodbank Program. Frederick’s third annual Pagan Pride Day in September of 2017 drew over 500 people throughout the day and raised 573.16 pounds of food for The Foodbank Program. Frederick’s fourth annual Pagan Pride Day in September of 2018 drew over 550 people throughout the day and raised 823.11 pounds of food for the Frederick Food Bank. Frederick’s fifth annual Pagan Pride Day in September of 2019 drew over 650 people throughout the day and raised 1635.25 pounds of food for The Frederick Food Bank and another 257 pounds of pet food and other supplies for the Adoption Center at Frederick County Animal Control.
The International Pagan Pride Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to the elimination of prejudice and religious discrimination through education, activism, charity and community. Pagan Pride celebrations are held annually around the world within two weeks of the Autumn Equinox. In 2013, there were 98 Pagan Pride events across the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Rome and Austria. 2013 event attendance was 65,717: an increase in attendance by over 20,000 when compared to 2012. The events collected a total of 39,962.80 pounds of nonperishable food.
The food drive gives participants a way to share with those who are less fortunate while making a positive statement about Paganism. For decades Pagans have been wrongly accused of practicing devil-worship and performing “black magic.” In reality most Pagans enjoy a religion emphasizing respect for nature, humanity, and oneself. Modern Paganism, or Neo-Paganism, is a growing religious movement based on combinations of ancient polytheism, modern eco-spirituality, and reverence for the Divine beyond gender stereotypes.
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick is located at 4880 Elmer Derr Road. Frederick Pagan Pride is hosted by Frederick CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans). For more information about the event or about Pagan religions, email Irene Glasse at frederickpaganpride@gmail.com. Additional information regarding Pagan Pride Day is located at https://www.facebook.com/FrederickPaganPride.
Frederick Pagan Pride Day 