After the turbulence and uncertainty of 2024, 2025 marked our first full year of existence as a nonprofit, and it became a year of immense growth and grounding. Together, we nurtured community safety nets where none existed. We reclaimed space, in every crack that we could find to fit into. We chose joy as resistance. We forged relationships strong enough to hold fear, uncertainty, grief, and hope all at once. We survived and continue to survive by weaving abundance out of what we have: mutual aid, storytelling, kitchen-table organizing, and the deep cultural practices that have sustained our people for generations.
Our work as Haywood County Pride has always been rooted in cultural organizing, mutual care, and Appalachian queer identity–not as an aesthetic, but as a lived reality. Together, we have built programs that reflect the particular needs, histories, and creativity of our community. We invite you now to look back at all that this period of time held by reading our first-ever impact report, lovingly created and delivered as a reminder that HayCo Pride is here: Appalachian-rooted, relationship-centered, and committed to growing queer belonging in the mountains every single day.