Tamara Richardson has attended the gay pride parade in Asbury Park since it began more than 20 years ago.
Every year the 63-year-old Ocean Township resident said more people of all backgrounds attend the celebration and she said that held true today during the 22nd annual LGBT — lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender — Pride Celebration.
"The parade has just got larger and larger with more people involved. And I think that’s another statement about our society that more of our people are willing to come and to participate," said Richardson, who is in a civil union with her partner of 12 years. "I think it brings tremendous awareness to the community. You have such a collection of folks that really gives you a sense of that we are everywhere."
Scores of people crowded along the city’s sidewalks waving, cheering and shouting "Happy Pride" as the parade — with marchers from gay rights and equality groups, corporations and other organizations — wound its way from City Hall through downtown and toward the Convention Center.
Today’s parade, which began in 1992, was the largest ever, according to organizers.
Laura Pople, president of Jersey Pride and organizer of the event, said the parade — and the outdoor festival that followed — were a celebration of a vibrant community. That celebration, she said, also took on added significance after Hurricane Sandy.
"We know there are a lot of people in our community who were really seriously affected and one of the things I found doing so much organizing work in both Monmouth and Ocean counties that happened with Sandy is the way the community came together," she said. "And that’s what you see here today — in a different context of course — but it’s the community coming together. It’s working together."
Pople said "easily" between 15,000 and 20,000 people attended today’s event.
Couples, families and friends stretched out on blankets and sat on beach chairs in the grass near the Convention Center in the early afternoon to watch live musical performances, like singer Damien Crawford. Gay rights groups, churches and other organizations distributed literature and the AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display.
Festival-goers also visited the "The Zen Zone," where yoga classes were offered, and children played in an inflatable bounce house .
The weather was perfect for most of the day, but while headliner Kathy Sledge of Sister Sledge was performing "We Are Family" the rain started, and, Pople said, they ended the festival at 6 p.m., an hour early.
Post-parade activities at this year's Asbury Park pride festival.
Regular attendees — like Anson Boory, 43 of Roselle Park — said the festival has not only grown in size, but in diversity, since he started attending in his early 20s.
"There are so many children here now," said Boory. "That I find pleasingly amazing. It used to be like when I first came here — I’ll be honest — it came across like a lot people were just coming here to meet people, like a bar alternative. Now it’s more family."
One of those families was Herve Pierini and Brian Jacobs of Princeton, who brought their twin toddlers, Emma and Noah Jacobs, 32, said events like the gay pride festival "bring the community together. I think it brings more visibility. Especially having so many families here. That brings a lot more visibility showing that LGBT people are raising families.
"We need equality because we also are raising families," he said. "Our kids need to grow up in families where their parents have all the same rights. They have the same rights."
Jacobs — and other attendees — said events like the one in Asbury Park help raise awareness to achieve that goal.Richardson of Ocean said "we are everywhere."
"We are represented in any group that you can think of," she said. "And it’s just so important to be visible and 2013 is time to be as visible as we can possibly be."
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