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Throughout the afternoon of Out! Raleigh Pride, a blond-haired street preacher stood atop the steps to the old Wake County Courthouse.
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He flipped through Bible pages with his left hand and warned through the mic in his right hand about a “gay communist agenda,” spreading homophobic stereotypes about gay couples and the indoctrination of children.
So throughout the day, a half-dozen volunteers in orange LGBT Center of Raleigh shirts stood in front of the preacher, aiming to distract onlookers from his speech by flicking their wrists to beat their rainbow-patterned handheld fans like they had their boots on the ground.
The volunteers got an assist from adult LGBTQ+ cheer team Cheer Raleigh, who chanted “L, G, B-T-Q. We’ve got spirit; how about you?” and showcased prep stunts to passersby. On the Fayetteville Street stage, LGBT Center Executive Director Kori Hennessey shouted out Cheer Raleigh for helping drown out counterprotesters.
“Not only does the crowd love it,” Cheer Raleigh President Kesh Pieters said, “but hopefully the [counter]protesters are paused for a moment to say, ‘Oh! OK, she’s in the air now.”
Joining the thousands of people at Raleigh’s Pride event Saturday fostered new connections for Cheer Raleigh and other organizations, bringing visibility to the safe spaces they provide. But for several organizers, showing up was also about giving back to communities that gave so much to them — and in Pieters’ case, “saved my life.”
Pieters came close to tears as she credited joining a queer cheer team with helping her through a difficult period in her life. Living in Baltimore away from family and friends, the New York native said she was in a deep depression. Then she joined Cheer D.C., which she said healed her mind and body.
Cheer D.C. got Pieters out of the house and gave her responsibilities, she said — be it passing out flyers or giving her all to a performance.
“Just having to put my mindset as like ‘OK, I gotta get up,” Pieters said. “I got to get out, and I got to show up, because people are counting on me. That is what healed me.”
Pieters came in with cheer experience, but the atmosphere was welcoming to all skill levels. In that atmosphere, she found people who were also struggling to find friends and were away from their family and built friendships that will last “probably to my grave,” she said.
So when she moved to Raleigh a decade ago, she knew she had to start a chapter to bring the same community she felt in Baltimore to the South.
After Raleigh city council member Jonathan Lambert-Melton read Mayor Janet Cowell’s Pride Month proclamation, Hennessey thanked the city for supporting Pride in spite of challenges the LGBTQ+ community faces. Hennessey mentioned counterprotesters as one example. The News & Observer previously reported about a LGBTQ+ organizer who was allegedly assaulted at a Cary pride event.
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LGBT Center Board of Trustees Chair Katherine Croft said the center formed a command center at the YMCA on Fayetteville Street and had radio communications for all staff and security to ensure a quick response. But there was no question of having a Pride event — especially in this moment.
“There’s so many people who benefit from being a part of the broader LGBTQ+ community, and being able to just get together, celebrate with each other, support each other in times that can be very scary for an individual person within this community,” Croft said.
Out! Raleigh Pride is also a key fundraiser for the LGBT Center, which just moved into a new community center that will provide a food pantry, clothing closet and an LGBTQ+ library.
For those who wished to directly support the center’s efforts, volunteers took turns sitting in a dunk tank where attendees could pay $5 to throw a ball at the target.
Sarah Preston was one of those volunteers, though she’s the DEI director for the Raleigh chapter of Stonewall Sports, an adult sports league for LGBTQ+ individuals and allies.
Preston, a self-described “late bloomer,” said she did not come out as gay to herself until adulthood. When she did, she struggled to find a like-minded community in South Carolina, part of why she moved to Raleigh.
Before she moved to Raleigh, Preston said she signed up for Stonewall Sports’ kickball league, even though she didn’t play organized sports growing up. Yet upon joining her first team, she almost immediately became captain “because I love the idea of bringing people together.”
“While my teams can be competitive – or sometimes we’re just like ‘we’re here because we’re gay, not because we’re good,’ we’re just here to have a good time and build that community,” Preston said.
Preston said she encouraged a person she met in the Queer Adult Book Club at the LGBT Center to sign up for Stonewall Sports. That person’s team won a championship in its first season, and they told Preston Friday night “it was the best thing they’ve ever done in their life.”
“I found my community,” Preston said, tearing up as she retold the story. “I’m trying to help other people find theirs. So getting to do that is so rewarding.”
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This story was originally published June 27, 2026 at 6:24 PM.