Muncie OUTreach, an LGBTQ+ nonprofit center in Muncie, was founded 13 years ago by Laura Janney to “create safe spaces, resources and education for youth.”
Janney said she saw a need to create such “safe spaces” in the community after her son came out to her. She said she wanted her son to find friends and peers who also identified similarly to him and started taking him to Indiana Youth Group, a youth organization in Indianapolis. However, she began to want something closer to home for him.
“At the time, there was no place in Muncie that was gay-friendly,” Janney said.
After connecting with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie, the church directed Janney to Youth OUTreach, an LGBTQ youth organization in Ogden, Utah. The administrators gave Janney the same framework for their organization to use as reference while building her own LGBTQ center for the residents of Muncie.
Muncie Pride started in 2020 with the help of SteVen Knipp, a volunteer at Muncie OUTreach. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first and second Muncie Pride were to be virtual events. It wasn’t until the third year of Pride that the event was in-person.
Janney said the planning process takes place the day after the last Pride event ends, describing it as “a lot of hard work.”
This upcoming year is no exception, as Janney said the planning committee intends to welcome ample food and entertainment vendors.
Some residents of Muncie get involved with Muncie Pride as vendors, such as transgender author Paige Hendricks.
Hendricks said she initially wanted to get involved by helping with the planning process, but after the release of her book in 2024, “Out of The Closet,” an anthology of coming-out stories, she saw the local, annual pride event as an opportunity to meet new people and “get more education [on the LGBTQ+ experience] and word out” about her book.
“That sort of thing helped my starving artist status,” Hendricks said. “As I did that, I just got to meet a lot of people.”
Hendricks has expressed gratitude towards Muncie OUTreach, saying that the organization was one of the first places she turned to after she came out.
“They’re very helpful people,” Hendricks said.
Muncie resident and middle school teacher Michelle Buckmaster-Zvokel decided to get involved with Muncie OUTreach after the 2016 election, stating that she felt she needed to do more.
“I felt like I needed ‘to do’ instead of sort of ‘walk the walk, ' so to speak,” Buckmaster-Zvokel said. “So I got involved with Muncie OUTreach.”
During the first virtual Muncie Pride event during COVID-19, the organization asked Zvokel if she could make presentations for the virtual audience. She made a presentation on Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in schools, focusing on the organization's data on schools.
After a student asked Zvokel to sponsor GSA, she explained that she was “never going to stir the pot and start one of these” herself due to it primarily being “kid-driven” and that it was the students' help that got it started.
“It’s been the kids asking me to do it and to help them do it,” Zvokel said.
During Zvokel’s second year participating in Pride, she won an award titled the “Flag Planter,” which is awarded to an individual who is “making a difference within the LGBTQ community.”
Zvokel said the award was given to her because of her involvement with GSA, explaining that she has always been “supportive” of all her students.
“I want statistics that say the difference a supportive school environment can make in the lives of these kids [is] really something to see,” Zvokel said.
While the organization and planning process can take a long time, Janney’s biggest concern lies with security for the event. She explained the organization is “always” worried about security, and she also highlighted how important security is due to the “culture change”.
“People are being a little bit more threatening toward us about having [Muncie Pride],” Janney said.
Janney said the goal of Muncie Pride is to “have a great Pride festival”, and uses this mantra to move past tough challenges the organization might face, explaining that “we just go forward”.
“We don’t stop until it’s done,” Janney said.
A vendor sets up shop at the Pride festival at Canan Commons in downtown Muncie, Sept. 3, 2022. (Mya Cataline, DN)
Both Hendricks and Zvokel explained that neither of them has had a negative experience while at Pride.
“We know what can happen, and nothing like that has ever happened,” Hendricks said.
Even with the ongoing concern for security, the atmosphere of Muncie Pride has been “nothing but positive,” Zvokel said, describing it as a very “joyful and affirming” event and expressing how “supportive” the attendees are.
Janney said Muncie Pride has been “more widely accepted than ever” , with the number of attendees growing annually.
“It opens up a whole new world for the youth who are living secretly or are not accepted at home,” Janney said.
Zvokel reiterated that Muncie Pride has increased visibility towards the LGBTQ community by being a “family-friendly” event, explaining that some pride events can have a “scandalous” notion, whereas Muncie Pride shows their support within the youth.
With the help of sponsors and vendors, Muncie Pride is able to raise money to fund the event.
Janney said that Ball State is also a sponsor, along with a number of sponsors around Muncie. Along with the community helping Pride, many small businesses around Muncie are supported.
Hendricks said Pride allows information about these businesses to be distributed among the community, allowing multiple entrepreneurs to get their products out to the community.
Hendricks said coming out and visiting Pride is the best way for individuals to support, as vendors have valuable information and many attendees do not know what they are going to find, she said.
“Just the chance to talk with [vendors], answer questions to be there for the community and help them gain [a] better understanding. For me, that’s just as valuable,” said Hendricks.
Contact Linnea Sundquist at linnea.sundquist@bsu.edu.
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