{"id":3696,"date":"2025-10-15T01:07:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/3696\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T01:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:07:17","slug":"st-pete-pride-expects-to-continue-as-tampa-cancels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/3696\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Pride expects to continue as Tampa cancels"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 While Tampa’s Pride celebration has been canceled for<\/a> 2026, St. Pete Pride will soon kick off fundraising efforts for their annual parade next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Tampa Pride’s former president Carrie West said a lot of sponsors told him they could not financially support the 2026 Tampa Pride parade because of the policies against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
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West said the decision was made to cancel Tampa’s pride celebration in 2026 because of a shortage of funds and the current political climate
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The head of St. Pete Pride, Byron Green-Calisch, said some companies want to support, but don’t want to be publicized
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Fundraising for St. Pete Pride kicks off in October. Green-Calisch said while fundraising efforts will look different, the St. Pete Pride parade will definitely go on next year<\/p>\n

The head of St. Pete Pride said the parade will go on, despite the tense political climate and the backlash against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started as a protest,\u201d\u00a0said Byron Green-Calisch, the president of St. Pete Pride\u2019s Board of Directors. \u201cThe first pride was a protest, and I believe the spirit lives on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The St. Pete Pride parade has been around for nearly 25 years, and it\u2019s considered the largest in the Southeast.<\/p>\n

The president of St. Pete Pride said the organization lost $150,000 in sponsorships last year, but the community helped to fill in the gap. This year, he said, fundraising will be even harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, we had some conversations with sponsors about the political rhetoric, how does that look, their return on investment and are they concerned about any backlash – and that was last year,\u201d said Green-Calisch. \u201cTheir conversations have only continued with continued political violence and the temperature has only been ratcheted up. I fully anticipate having these conversations with our sponsors.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Tampa Pride\u2019s board posted that they were canceling their parade in 2026 because of a loss in sponsorships and the current political climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of sponsors told me, DEI, is the reason they can\u2019t do it,\u201d said former President of Tampa Pride Carrie West.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tampa\u2019s mayor said it\u2019s unfortunate, but she understands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, calmer voices will prevail, and we\u2019ll be able to pick up next year,\u201d Mayor Jane Castor said.<\/p>\n

Others believe Tampa Pride should have worked harder to bring in cash for a parade in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are 6-7 months out,\u201d said former Tampa Pride Vice President Trevor Rosine. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t have raised enough money for a community celebration? We don\u2019t necessarily need to be paying $100,000 to close off city streets and rezone liquor licenses to throw a one-day party. We can bring it back to its roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosine helped with fundraising efforts for Tampa Pride after COVID. He said he knows it\u2019s trickier to fundraise this year, but it can be done. Rosine said other groups have been discussing other events next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not see a world where there won\u2019t be a Tampa Pride celebration next year,\u201d Rosine said. \u201cIt will go on, with or without Tampa Pride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 While Tampa’s Pride celebration has been canceled for 2026, St. Pete Pride will soon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4252,115,596,4253,4251,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-3696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-dalia-dangerfield","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-pinellas-county","11":"tag-pride-month","12":"tag-pride-month-2025","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-tampa","20":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}