At high noon on a Wednesday, the Village Green in Woodstock looked like a knitting circle had exploded in technicolor. Spools of pink, orange, electric blue and lime green acrylic yarn weavings spilled from bags, while volunteers crouched at the base of maple and oak trees along Tinker Street, wrapped the trees with vibrant swatches of hand-knit fabric. Passersby paused to watch.

“We’re yarn-bombing 22 trees today,” said Erica Bliss, co-chair of Woodstock’s Pride Parade. “The idea is inclusivity. It’s a community coming together to build something.”

The yarn cost $250. The labor was free—and multigenerational. Twenty-five volunteers, ranging in age from 24 to 82, signed up to help. Among them was Donna Degnan, a retired fashion designer who splits her time between New York City and Woodstock. “These are tough times,” she said. “In this political climate I want to volunteer.” She identifies as part of the LGBTQ community and now helps design merchandise for the upcoming weekend of Pride festivities.

Others brought their own reasons. “There aren’t enough queer people in Woodstock and I want to attract more,” said Serena da Conceição, a playwright and part-time resident, joined with her dog, a schnauzer named Audo. “There are a lot of visual markers that make people feel safe, and these are one of them.”

The yarn bombing is just the first stitch in a monthlong tapestry of Pride celebrations in the Overlook Region, a cluster of Catskills communities including Woodstock, Saugerties, Hunter, and Pine Hill. Pride Month—observed nationally in June—now finds a foothold here in events ranging from parades and art installations to queer family gatherings and drag performances. Woodstock, where the movement has grown fastest, hosts a full weekend of programming June 6–8. Other towns are catching up: Hunter will hold festivities at Scribner’s Catskill Lodge the same weekend, and Pine Hill plans its first-ever Pride event on July 12.

But in Woodstock, Pride is a grassroots movement and, to hear organizers tell it, a small miracle.

It began in December 2022 when Aileen Morgan and her partner, Megan Ghiroli, started hosting queer meetups on Sundays. “Sometimes it was just me and Megan going, ‘Oh, is anybody gonna show up?’” Morgan said. “But by April, someone asked, ‘Are you going to do a Pride event?’ And it just sort of struck me.”

They did. In 2023, the team put on small Pride events. In 2024, the first official Pride Parade drew 2,000 people to the Colony and downtown streets. “We pulled it off,” Morgan said.

Now, Morgan runs Queerly, a nonprofit she co-founded to support the growing slate of events. She doesn’t take a salary. Neither does anyone else. But every artist is paid, and funds are redistributed to local organizations like the Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center in Kingston and the Woodstock Library. “This is my full-time job,” Morgan said. “But I’m grateful that my two partners are able to support me financially.” Morgan, who is in a committed polyamorous relationship with two partners, says their support makes her work possible.

Morgan, Ghiroli, and Erica Bliss, make up the core team behind Woodstock Pride. This year’s programming includes a flag-raising at Town Hall, a sold-out piano bar night at White Feather Farm, and Sunday’s parade. Three local LGBTQ trailblazers will be honored during the closing festivities.

“We’re going to have an interactive art installation too—a giant dream catcher,” Morgan said. “People can write a Pride wish and pin it on. We’ll carry it through the parade.”

For Morgan, visibility is at the heart of the project. “These kids are growing up not seeing other families like their own,” she said. “Joy is activism. We’re building a little army of safety.”

Organizers have worked hard to keep the event from becoming overrun by corporate interests. “This is a community event and it is community-driven and community-supported,” Morgan said. “I’m hyperprotective of it. There’s no distraction. It’s all about seeing everybody else in joy and in partnership and in community.”

That ethos of community first is echoed throughout the region’s new Pride efforts. Saugerties will host “The Partition,” a community party with art, music, food, and more on June 22. In Hunter, Scribner’s Catskill Lodge is hosting a weekend of activities for Mountaintop Pride. And in Pine Hill, residents are rallying to launch a debut Pride celebration they hope becomes annual.

But in Woodstock, it’s already tradition.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the last trees were wrapped in yarn, Erica Bliss looked down the main drag and smiled. “This is what it’s about,” she said. “Showing up as community.”

Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.