DEI Community Project organizes Rowlett’s Pride
After the city disbanded its DEI Commission, the community stepped up with DEi project KAMILA VARGAS-GONZALEZ | Dallas Voice Intern editor@dallasvoice.com It’s crunch time: Amidst Rowlett City Council’s decision late in May to disband its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission, activists in the suburb east of Dallas quickly moved to create the DEI Community Project nonprofit to resume the DEI Commission work of funding and organizing Rowlett’s annual Pride Month festivities.
The city council’s 4-3 vote motioned the disbanding on May 7, days after, DEI advocates Kellie McKee, Susan Urrutia, and Missy Tidwell stood at the forefront of creating the DEI Community Project nonprofit that has already organized events for the nonprofit’s first official event, the Sweet Taste of Pride.
The event is free to the public and will be held from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. on Friday, June 28, in Downtown Rowlett. It will include free food and drinks, live performances, giveaways and social activities. “We want to take over and fill the void that was gonna be left by the commission,” said Kellie McKee, president of the DEI Community Project. “We want to take over all of those things and all of those areas that the commission was doing.” The event celebrating the LGTBQ community was held last year by Rowlett’s DEI Commission and had been scheduled to happen again this year; however, the council’s move to disband the commission caused the DEI Community Project to form and pick up the Pride event.
McKee said, this year, everything has been done and paid for with funds raised by the DEI Community Project, separate from city funds. “Everything that was available to the city for free, we had to pay for.
