When Vanessa Acara and her partner, Jonathan, were looking for a place to put down roots in the Hudson Valley last spring, they found a house in Stanfordville around the same time Pride signs began appearing along Route 82.
The signs did not say everything about the town, Acara said. But they said enough.
“I remember we looked at each other, we were just like, oh, okay, we’re gonna be okay here,” Acara said.
Acara, who bought a home in Stanfordville last September and is moving in with her young daughter, saw the signs as more than support for the LGBTQ+ community.
“Folks who celebrate Pride know how to build community,” Acara said. “They also know how to have fun.”
That spirit is what organizers of Stanford Pride say they have been building for five years. Since February, a 21-member volunteer committee has been preparing this year’s celebration, which returns Saturday, June 6, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Bangallworks, the community and coworking space at 97 Hunns Lake Road in Bangall. The event is free and open to the public.
Organized by the Stanford Pride Committee, with fiscal sponsorship from the Dutchess Pride Center, Stanford Pride began in 2021 as a casual gathering at Bangallworks and has since grown into what organizers said is the town’s largest annual community event.
Steve Bruman and Tom Ambler, who are married and co-own Bangallworks, hosted the first two Stanford Pride celebrations at their community and coworking space. The celebration later moved to Thomases Equestrian, where it was held for the past two years, drawing more than 300 people last year despite heavy rain, organizers said.
This year, organizers are preparing for what they expect to be the largest Stanford Pride yet. The committee voted to bring the celebration back to Bangallworks, citing its visibility, central location, and intimate, neighborly feel.
“People feel comfortable here,” said Bruman, a real estate agent at Corcoran Country Living. “It’s super cozy.”
This year’s event is expected to include free food and drinks, music, children’s activities, an ice cream truck, a dance floor, DJs, and a caravan from Town Hall to Bangallworks. Food and activities are covered through fundraising, in-kind donations, and volunteer work, organizers said.
From the beginning, Stanford Pride was designed not as a ticketed party or corporate festival, but as a free, family-friendly community celebration. Organizers said that volunteer-driven character has helped make the event one of Stanford’s largest annual gatherings, drawing LGBTQ+ residents, allies, families, children, and people from all walks of life.
“It’s really become a unifying event for the whole town,” Ambler said.
For Geneva Simms, a founding member of the Stanford Pride Committee and Stanford’s deputy historian, the event’s importance is tied to visibility.
Patrick Grego / The New Pine Plains Herald
“Visibility is very important to me,” Simms said. “Especially for the youth in this area.”
Anthony Sarnicola, another committee member, said that visibility has already changed the way some young people experience life in rural Stanford. He recalled one young person who arrived at the first Stanford Pride feeling alone and who left with a different sense of what community could look like.
“That kid went to that pride and it literally changed their life,” Sarnicola said.
As Stanford Pride enters its fifth year, organizers say the celebration has become an essential part of the fabric of community life. New volunteers have joined. The donor base has grown. The planning has become more practiced. But its purpose, they said, has remained simple: visibility, inclusion, and an annual gathering that helps people feel they are in the right place.