MUHLENBERG TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Pride month may be over, but the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community is still going strong in Berks County.<\/p>\n
People gathered this afternoon at Jim Dietrich Park in Muhlenberg Township for the 20th annual Berks Pride Fest.<\/p>\n
There was food, live music, craft vendors and more.<\/p>\n
We spoke to a member of the support group Free Mom Hugs, who says what seems like a small gesture can make a world of difference for someone who doesn’t feel accepted.<\/p>\n
“A hug does seem very simple but everybody needs a hug and they are actually shown to reduce blood pressure and improve mental health and even if it’s just knowing that a high-five or fist bump is gonna make you know that somebody cares about you, that’s what our goal is,” said Kathleen Donohue of Free Mom Hugs.<\/p>\n
Organizers say it’s the oldest and largest festival of its kind in Berks County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUHLENBERG TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Pride month may be over, but the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community is still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-247381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}