Members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies gathered at the Battle Ground Event Center on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 15 and 16, for the third in-person Battle Ground Pride hosted by Evoke Cascadia.
This year’s event expanded into two days, with one day featuring a vendor market and the second a festival and resource fair. A couple hundred people attended the celebration, which featured organizations including Planned Parenthood, SW Washington Equity Coalition, Washington Families for Freedom, Council for the Homeless, Cascade AIDS Project and Autism Empowerment.
Organizer Jessica Cole, LGBTQ+ activist and president of Evoke Cascadia, first launched Battle Ground Pride online in 2020. She said hosting the event locally helps connect northern Clark County residents with services that are often only available farther south.
“We invited the non-profits up here because a lot of them are based in Vancouver, or even Portland. To drive down there is a lot of effort. So, we brought them here so local people could access them for the first time,” Cole said.
Cole plans to host Battle Ground Pride again in 2026. To learn more about future events by Evoke Cascadia, visit evokecascadia.org.
