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Ithaca Pagan Pride Day 2000

part of the

Mid-Atlantic Region

of the

International Pagan Pride Project

Pagan Pride 2000 is September 23, 2000! Join IP32K today!

The mission of the Pagan Pride Project is to foster pride in Pagan identity through education, activism, charity and community.

Local Coordinator's Web site for Ithaca New York

Ithaca Area Coordinators
Sheherazahde (Eva) E-mail: sheherazahde@yahoo.com
Phone: 1-(607)257-4874

In Stewart Park at Noon we will be having a Potluck Picnic by the bridge to the Fuertes Bird Sanctuary, so bring a dish to pass.

At 2pm we will have an open religious ritual to celebrate the harvest, so bring one canned or non-perishable food item, to be donated to a local Food Bank.

On the day of the event Food for the Potluck and donation items can be droped off at the park before the Planet Walk.

There will be drop boxes for food donations at 3D-Light on the Ithaca Commons and at Greenstar Cooperative Market.

The event is sponsored by IthacaPagan@egroups.com, Ithaca Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, and United Pagan Ministries of Cornell. The celebration is open to the public, and the admission is one canned or non-perishable food item, to be donated to a local Food Bank.

September 23, 2000
Ithaca Pagan Pride Day Schedule
10am drop off donations and put luck items. at Stewart Park
10:30am ~ on the Commons, "Clean up the Planet Walk" sponsored by Ithaca CUUPs
Noon ~ at Stewart Park by the bridge from the Fuertes Bird Sanctuary, Potluck Picnic. Bring a dish to pass
2pm ~ Stewart Park, Harvest Thanksgiving Ritual, Bring a canned or non-perishable food item, to be donated to a local Food Bank.

If you are interested in helping with PPD this year - if you want to have a part in the ritual, help with the food drive, run the tables for the potluck picnic, do crafts with the kids, etc. - please let us know! Email us with your info, where you are, what you'd like to do, et

We will be tabling on the Commons on September 2nd and 9th in the Aurora St. Pavilion from Noon till 4pm.

Visit this site The Hunger Site Home - And donate food for free to give to feed hungry people in the world. We won't get credit for it but that isn't the point.

Ithaca Pagan Pride 1999

We tabled two times on the Ithaca Commons to publicize PPD. We were there on Saturday, September 4th and Saturday, September 11th Both Days from Noon to 4pm at the Pavilion by Aurora St. near Simeone's. We had flliers about PPD and the Goddess 2000 Project. People were very nice and we gave away a lot of fliers and made some new friends.

Saturday, September 18, 1999

We gathered at 5pm in Stewart Park for a Potluck Picnic. For some reason it ended up all vegitarian. But very good. Whoever brought the hummus should get in touch with me (sheherazahde@yahoo.com) to get their bowl back.

After dinner we got out the art stuff and drew postcards for the Goddess 2000 Project. I mailed them off the following Monday. You can visit our local Goddess 2000 site for more information about this project.

Zaphod led the Fall Equinox ritual. He used the standard Wiccan large group ritual format. As described in this handy Facilatators Handbook. (or you can look at the shorter Outline Form). It was a bit informal to allow maximum participation. Zaphod had the center piece of the ritual planned out before hand and asked for vollenteers to take the quarter calls. We focused on growth and scattered grass seed, as per the sample ritual on the PPP home site.

Many people had seen our anouncement in the Ithaca Journal. Some people wandered over because they saw our signs in the park. I counted 20 people at dinner, some left and others arrived, then I counted 23 during the ritual.

We collected three bags of food for the local Salvation Army pantry.

Ithaca Pagan Pride 1998

In 1998 we only heard about this project two weeks before it was supposed to occur. We registered as coordinators but never heard from the national organizers. (They had closed down because the event was so close.)

Since we had so little time to work with we decided to just table in the Commons in downtown Ithaca. There are several pavilions in the Commons for just that purpose. Luckily we had a friend in city hall who hand carried our permit requests through the process. It was a little rough because the month before some Christian evangelists had caused a stir and annoyed the local businesses by ranting at top volume through some kind of sound system. We promised not to deafen anyone or use electronic amplification and we got our permits.

We pulled some fliers off the web site and threw together a poster and started advertizing.

Which sparked our first scare of the event. One of the book stores that Zaphod innocently wandered into was a Christian bookstore. It was an honest mistake he was just not paying very close attention and the front half of the store was general posters and books not particularly Christian.

It turns out, one of the clerks overheard Zaphod asking to put up a poster for this Pagan event and sent out a general call on a Christian Email list to stage a counter demonstration. We found out about it because some of the United Pagan Ministries people subscribe to Christian lists as well. You can see what he said Here

My feeling was the a counter demonstration would bring out the press and would do us more good than harm. We always look good when we sit calmly by and say we just want to practice our faith in peace, while fanatical Christians are screaming that we are going to burn in hell for all eternity. But nothing came of it . No Christian protesters showed up.

When the day came members of United Pagan Ministries of Cornell helped out by providing a display they had made for their tabling activities as well as an assortment of pagan books and PEN pamphlets.

I provided my Altar set up for display (minus Athame) and one of my students set up his altar as well. Zaphod brought his drums and other noise makers and we sat and drummed for about an hour.

It was a quiet afternoon. People stopped and looked and sometimes asked questions. Most of the people who admitted to being pagan were visiting from out of town.

We did not gather much in the way of donations but we did get one funny story. After we had been drumming for an hour an older gentleman came over from one of the outdoor cafes and asked us to stop so he could finish his lunch in peace. I felt a bit conflicted (it is very difficult to convince drummers to stop) but he gave us a dollar and the drummers agreed to take a break. After an hour he came back and I hardly wanted to meet his eyes, I knew I would really have trouble convincing the drummers to stay quiet much longer. But he just thanked us and gave us $10!

So in addition to our small box of canned goods we were able to raise $11 for the local pantry. Not much (many of the local pagans qualify to recieve this sort of assistance) but every bit helps.

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