Monday kicked off the start of Pride Week in Vermont. The Pride Center Vermont, the organizers of the annual event, says the week is all about feeling heard, feeling seen, and coming together, and they wanted to make sure that the pandemic didn’t silence them.

Pride week will certainly look a lot different than it has in years past, but there is still fun to be had. Festivities range from a Women’s Trivia Night Tuesday to a Rural Queer Crafternoon Wednesday and a live, drive-in drag show at a local theater.

The Pride Center’s Justin Marsh says the event is especially important this year because of feelings of isolation brought on by the Coronavirus. “You can’t cancel pride, so we knew we had to do something, and we to come together as a community, and so it’s, it’s really nice to still find ways that we can all connect,” he said.

Richard Elliott, whose drag name is “Rhedd Rhumm,” says the idea is to have a platform that enables everyone to leave their worries at the door. “I want you to escape from whatever it is that you have to escape from for that 4 to 5 minutes. Because it is such a therapeutic thing to be able to watch somebody, just be enamored by them, smile, laugh, forget about the worries of the world,” Elliott said.

Taking the pandemic and safety precautions into consideration, Pride Week will consist of a combination of virtual and in-person events.