Westfield Pride

Westfield Pride, Inc. is a nonprofit that runs a week of Pride events in Westfield each June. The week opens with a flag raising at City Hall and includes bingo, karaoke, a comedy night, a family equality picnic, and Pridefest at the Elm Street Plaza, and closes with an ecumenical service.

Organizers say Pride in Westfield existed informally for as long as LGBTQIA+ people have lived openly in the city, but the organized effort began in 2019. Tina Gorman, director of the Westfield Senior Center, and Dennis Akins created an event to reach LGBTQIA+ seniors, called Leap Out to Breakfast because it fell in a leap year. At that packed February 2020 breakfast, a Pride flag was displayed in a Westfield municipal building for the first time in the city's roughly 350-year history.

Residents then asked whether the city could officially fly a Pride flag. Councilor Kristen Mello, advised by former councilors Agma Sweeney and Mary O'Connell, joined Kathi Bradford, Christopher Clark and Akins in an ad hoc Westfield Pride Alliance to request permission from Mayor Donald Humason. He approved, and on June 26, 2020, the fifth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges marriage ruling, the Progress Pride Flag was raised at City Hall with help from retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice John Greaney.

The group has since grown into Westfield Pride, Inc., a 501(c)(3) with an elected board. Its mission is to celebrate, support and honor the LGBTQIA+ community by advocating for an inclusive Westfield, sharing resources and offering education in a spirit of solidarity. It holds monthly meetings, most of them hybrid, on the first Monday of the month, and anyone interested can join through the link on its calendar.

Pride events celebrate LGBTQ+ people and mark the Stonewall uprising of June 1969. Most combine a parade or march with a festival of performers, community groups, vendors and food.

Westfield Pride has included pridefest, flag raising, family picnic, comedy night, karaoke and ecumenical service.

The organizer has not announced dates for 2027 yet. In 2026 it was held June 1-7, 2026. It usually falls first week of June, with Pridefest on Saturday.