A group of community members in Cazenovia is getting ready to host the village’s first ever Pride Parade on Saturday. The event is part of second annual Pride Fest Weekend that includes numerous activities to celebrate unity and the LGTBQ community.

“Caz has been super supportive,” said H. Grey Supply Co. Owner Travis Barr.

Barr believes Cazenovia is where he belongs.

“Business and entrepreneurship has been in my blood," he said.

This is the village where his grandfather Henry Grey Barr owned and operated the popular Brae Loch Inn for close to 70 years. Today, Travis who is openly gay along with his partner Alex, run a general store just down the street.

“We carry everything from men’s and women’s clothing with a concentration on gender neutrality,” said Barr.

Fittingly, the store is named H. Grey Supply Co. after Travis’ late grandfather. Aside from a successful business, Travis and other community members noticed last year that Cazenovia wasn’t doing much to celebrate the LGTBQ community.

Within a few weeks time, they were able to help create the village’s first ever Pride Fest with numerous activities in the village.

“It really was a community effort. We talked about doing something as business owners for Pride, staying open late, hanging our pride flags, and it just rolled out organically to turn into a full pride fest with performances in the park, we didn’t have a parade but we had a little march,” said Barr.

Hundreds of people came out to celebrate. The success of that festival inspired the group, Cazenovia Pride, to begin working on making this year’s festival even bigger.

This year, a large parade will take place down Albany Street on Saturday. But Travis said not everyone has always been supportive.

In fact, he even received a letter questioning the effort signed by “A Native Cazenovian for Decades.”

“In the letter, they said basically, there’s nothing proud about being gay, why are you proud of that? But yet, they were proud for being a 'Native Cazenovian' for decades," said Barr.

"So we used the sentiment for good, and [made it into a] shirt for charity. All the proceeds go toward Cazenovia Pride to make us a non-profit," said H. Grey Supply Co. Co-owner Alex Altomonte.

Many local businesses have stepped up and are now either hosting events or fully supporting the weekend’s festivities. As more Pride events grow across the country it means a great deal to Travis to see how much his hometown is supporting Pride Fest here.

“It’s important for us to come together. And, if pride can be the thing to bring everyone together, to feel the love, to feel the support, to feel the community, then that’s something I want to be a part of and it feels great,” he said.

The Cazenovia Pride Parade will take place at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday on Albany Street. Anyone can join the Cazenovia Pride group in walking in the parade by meeting at the Cazenovia Public Library at 11:00 a.m.