DELAND, Fla. — For more than eight years, DeLand Pride has made it its mission to nurture professional and personal relationships among LGBTQ+ members and their allies, and now leaders at the nonprofit say they want to extend their impact beyond the city of DeLand.

What You Need To Know

  • The nonprofit organization DeLand Pride was founded in the wake of the Orlando Pulse Shooting in June of 2016

  • Organization leaders say the group's mission is to nurture professional and personal relationships among LGBTQ+ members and their allies

  • This year, DeLand Pride is working to extend the support they've seen in DeLand throughout the entire county by creating Volusia Pride

Coming into downtown DeLand, the presence of DeLand Pride is something you notice right away — businesses show their support on windows and doors with the DeLand Pride Welcome sticker.

The sticker is a sign that members of the organization say represents diversity, inclusion, and respect for all members of the community.

“I've been with DeLand Pride since 2017 — DeLand Pride started in 2016,” Volusia Pride President Ann-Marie Willacker said as she walked into one of the businesses that supports the organization, Sidecar Market and Bar.

“We partner with them on a number of different events, and it's really great to be able to partner with our local businesses," Willacker said. "Not only does it help us support them, but they support us."

At the entrance and throughout Sidecar Market and Bar, customers can see the business' support for the pride community. Barista and bartender Katana McCallister has been working there for about a year and said it’s the best job she’s ever had.

“It’s a safe space for everyone," she said. "So, whenever folks come in here and they see the sign on our door, they know that they're going to be treated with respect. They're not going to be judged, and they're more likely to be surrounded by other people supporting the business who feel the same."

This year DeLand Pride is working to extend that support even more through a new organization called Volusia Pride. Willacker says DeLand Pride has two sister prides right now, Lake Helen Pride and Daytona Pride. By creating Volusia Pride to encompass all three groups, she said people would be able to find everything in one spot.

“Through Volusia Pride being kind of this umbrella organization for some of our smaller sister prides, it allows us to support them in some of the kind of administrative ways that can be really challenging for new organizations to get going,” Willacker said.

“We want to kind of bring all of the information together," she added. "So when, say, someone's on the internet searching for, you know, county pride resources, you know, they aren't going to five or six different websites."

Willacker said another important aspect of growing is that Volusia Pride will be to potentially replicate the support they have seen from businesses in DeLand across the entire county.

“When DeLand Pride first started, there was a team that went around, and they hung, we had 17 businesses in town that hung a pride flag during the month of June," she said. "That was the very first year, very first Pride Month that DeLand Pride was a thing."

Over the years, that grew to more than 100 businesses that show support by hanging flags during Pride Month. But after the month was over the flags would come down, which is why Willacker said the group decided to transition to something more permanent: pride stickers in the front doors and windows of businesses.

“They want customers to feel safe in their business," she said. "And so, if that little sticker and that commitment helps to create that, then most of the businesses around here are very supportive of that."

Willacker said Volusia Pride's goal is for those already living in Volusia County, or people looking to move there, to find it as a community where they will have the support they need to feel welcome.