A gaggle of red-shirt-wearing LGBT youth will converge upon the Magic Kingdom June 4, thanks to a donation of comped tickets from Disney to the Zebra Coalition.
According to Zebra executive director Heather Wilkie, 60 people are going: 45 youths and 15 chaperones.
“We think [the outing is] a really important thing for youth to be able to raise awareness and participate in a Pride event, promoting it in a very healthy way on the youth level,” Wilkie says. “A lot of the events at Gay Days… may be more focused on adults, and I think that having that youth component is great because it does separate us, but at the same time, they’re able to experience Pride with adults.”
Disney says they’re happy for the second year in a row to provide tickets to the organization’s youth to visit Magic Kingdom Theme Park for a family-friendly experience.
“We’re also going to be wearing red shirts that have Zebra Coalition branding on them, to support the Pride day, because everyone wears red at Disney on Gay Days,” Wilkie adds.
She says Mears Transportation is donating “a charter bus, pick up and drop off to and from Zebra Coalition to Magic Kingdom on that day.”
Zebra and Disney have a standing relationship. Zebra receives a $10,000 grant from Disney each year to support art and theatre programming that allows LGBT youth to express themselves and develop leadership skills.
