Winterville Watermelon Festival

PFLAG will have a booth at the Winterville Watermelon Festival on Saturday, August 27th. The festival is at the Town Park located at 324 Sylvania St. in Winterville (map/directions). Please come by to visit us and let your friends who might be interested in PFLAG know as well!

Candlelight Vigil for Victims of Orlando Shooting

There will be a candlelight vigil in Greenville on Tuesday, June 14th to commemorate the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando FL early Sunday morning.

While the candlelight vigil will be at 8:30pm (around dusk) on the Greenville Town Common, participants are urged to meet at Crave Uptown (409 Evans Street) at 7:45pm and file down Evans Street starting at 8pm to gather on the Town Common at the amphitheater.

PFLAG is one of the sponsor/organizing groups, with additional logistical support from Uptown Greenville.  Please share the Facebook Event widely and invite your friends!

May Meeting

Please join us for our May monthly meeting starting at 7pm on Thursday, May 12th at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greenville, 131 Oakmont Dr.

The first hour will be our normal support group meeting, and the second hour, starting at 8pm will feature a panel of speakers “PFLAG Greenville hosts: Speaking from the Heart: A Community Response to HB2”, a panel discussion on HB2. Community leaders will discuss the origins and implications of HB2, along with ongoing efforts in our community and beyond to oppose this law.

April 2016 Program

Please join us for our monthly meeting on Thursday, April 14th starting at 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greenville, 131 Oakmont Drive.  UUCG is an officially designated Welcoming Congregation with the UUA and features non-gendered restroom facilities.

The first hour (7-8 pm) is a PFLAG Support Group.  The next hour (8-9 pm) varies depending on the month, to include any organizational business needing to be conducted, as well as educational or advocacy issues time.  In April, we will have a program about healthy relationships presented by Glee Dunbar.

We are very excited about this important and needed effort as well as the enthusiasm of our participants!  We hope to see you Thursday starting at 7pm.

PirateFest and HB 2

Despite a small amount of rain, not quite seasonable temperatures, and a LOT of wind, our table at PirateFest got a very good amount of traffic and our Friendraiser got a lot of interest, and we’ll update you with the numbers as soon as they’re compiled.  We’ve also started a raffle for a rainbow stained glass piece created and donated by Mark Rasdorf. We sold a good number of tickets at PirateFest and will continue selling them until the drawing at our May meeting. We will post more information on the raffle soon.

As expected, a lot of people who stopped were concerned about HB 2, so we had a fact sheet compiled to answer many questions and explain our concerns about the bill. You can view and print copies of the fact sheet or share digitally with others. Confused about HB2

Thanks to Sandy, Deb, Robert, Holly, Rich, and Jeannette for staffing our both, and to Gina and Yeshi from Aim Higher Now who did voter registration with us.  This is likely to become a regular annual event for PFLAG where we can get the word out about our purpose so people know how to find us.

Trans Support Group Forming

There is a peer support group forming to provide a safe, affirming, and empathetic space for members and allies of the transgender community to find resources, make new friends, and support each other. We welcome all members of the transgender community, as well as their significant others, family, friends, and advocates.

We meet the third Tuesday of each month at Winterville Christian Church (257 Cooper St., Winterville, NC 28590). For more information email: pitttransgroup@yahoo.com

Our first meeting will be April 19, 2016 at 7pm.

Note: this group is not affiliated with PFLAG, but PFLAG Greenville has endorsed the effort, seeing a real need for this in our community.

HB 2 Rally Remarks by Deborah Thomson

Hello Friends,

I’m Deborah Thomson and I am the president of PFLAG Greenville. PFLAG is our nation’s oldest and largest organization supporting and uniting families, friends, allies, and LGBTQ people.  And I am proud to say that Greenville has one of the newest chapters in the nation, being less than one year old.

I got a call on Tuesday night from Mara Keisling at the National Center for Transgender Equality. I had met Mara just a few weeks ago when she spoke here on campus through ECU’s LGBT Resource Office’s speakers series. In our call Tuesday night Mara let me know about the transphobic legislation that was going to be railroaded through our state legislature on Wednesday in the surprise “special session”. This was a special session, the first in 35 years, that was likely called to the capitol on one day’s notice in order to give any opposition minimal chance to organize. Mara asked “Can you be there?” Of course there was only one answer. Hell Yes.