{"id":2505893,"date":"2026-07-17T10:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2505893"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T10:55:14","slug":"bellingham-celebrates-pride-with-parade-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/bellingham-celebrates-pride-with-parade-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bellingham celebrates Pride with parade, entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Crowds gathered for the fifth pride resurgence event in Bellingham<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A parade and festival on Sunday capped a weekend of celebrating Pride in Bellingham. The parade hit the ground running at 11 a.m. with rainbow flag-sporting cars and parade participants making their way under blue skies from Bellingham High School, through downtown, to the Pride festival at Depot Market Square.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gina Touche sings \u201cThrough the Glitter\u201d live during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An assortment of booths set up by artisans, community groups, nonprofit organizations and businesses waited at the square, as well as a performance stage hosting various drag artists and guest speakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite part is seeing all the hard work come together. It\u2019s about four to five months of planning prior,\u201d said drag performer Rikki Sinsation, who was an organizer of the event with local volunteer group Pride in Bellingham.<\/a> \u201cSeeing the community come together, all the entertainers come together. It\u2019s beautiful and it makes me emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Booths and vendors sit inside the Depot Market Square during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and East Maple Street in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While drag performers hit the stage to LGBTQ+ anthems by the likes of Lady Gaga and Queen, the smells of the food stands along Railroad Avenue mixed with chatter and laughter as community members walked through the market where booths offered local art, interactive games and prizes and amenities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Celine Ambrogene performs drag to Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u201cLandslide\u201d during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the groups present was Whatcom County\u2019s chapter of Free Mom Hugs,<\/a> a nationwide nonprofit that works to empower the LGBTQ+ community, commonly recognized by its\u00a0 volunteer members who wear shirts and pins offering \u201cFree Mom Hugs\u201d at LGBTQ+ events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best thing I do in my free time,\u201d said Rachel Sullivan of her volunteer work for the local Free Mom Hugs chapter. \u201cSo far it\u2019s been great. I made three people cry on the parade route, which is kind of silly (to say) but it\u2019s because you know that they needed it for whatever reason that they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Iriana poses for a portrait outside the Depot Market Square during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although Bellingham was home to its first Pride celebration in 1999, 2026 marks the fifth annual Pride celebration the city has seen in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Bailey takes a dip in a small pool provided by Animal Emergency Care to keep animals from overheating during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the COVID-19 pandemic made hosting a Pride event in 2020 impossible, a group called Whatcom Pride hosted a pop-up event in 2021. The next year, Pride in Bellingham formed and the group has organized the city\u2019s Pride events for the last six years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Shellie Veit sits on a motorcycle outside the Depot Market Square during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leading up to Sunday\u2019s events, a Pride Family Fun Day took place in Fairhaven on Saturday, which offered games for all ages and Pride related discounts from participating businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later that night, an all ages Pride dance party with live drag and DJs took place at the local event space at 1115 Railroad Ave., the HUT.<\/p>\n

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Julia Bredenburg, Claire Fowler and Juliana Fowler pose for a portrait outside the Depot Market Square during Bellingham\u2019s Pride celebration along Railroad Avenue in Bellingham on July 12, 2026. (Jae Ranney \/ Salish Current 2026) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI always get emotional during Pride. It doesn\u2019t matter how many times I\u2019ve been,\u201d said festivalgoer Julia Bredenburg.\u00a0 \u201cYou swell with emotion. You see all these people here for the same cause. We\u2019re all so happy. We\u2019re all so full of love. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014By Jae Ranney<\/em><\/p>\n

Internship sponsored by Puget Sound Energy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source salish-current.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crowds gathered for the fifth pride resurgence event in Bellingham A parade and festival on Sunday capped a weekend of celebrating Pride in Bellingham. The parade hit the ground running at 11 a.m. with rainbow flag-sporting cars and parade participants making their way under blue skies from Bellingham High School, through downtown, to the Pride […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2505894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[400184,35157,438123],"class_list":["post-2505893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bellingham","tag-pride","tag-whatcom-county"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Bellingham-celebrates-Pride-with-parade-entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2505893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505895,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505893\/revisions\/2505895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2505894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2505893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2505893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2505893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}