Spring 2023 – Don Harrell – President:
UPVA has had an interesting start to 2023. Unite Page VA (UPVA) started in 2019 as an exploratory committee and was promptly impacted by a world pandemic to be called Covid-19. Covid shut down many of our activities in 2020 through 2022. As many of you are aware, the founder and visionary behind UPVA passed away suddenly in late 2022. We miss him!
The board met in January and agreed with the vision and dream of John Lineberger that the need for a group like Unite Page is much too important to let this organization slowly fade. The board chose to revitalize ourselves and our organization. We are looking forward to a bright future for a group that promotes equality, advocacy and education around the LGBTQ community in and around Page County. Unite Page VA (UPVA) has three primary goals:
- Welcome and embrace Equality in all persons, Educate ourselves and our neighbors on areas important to us as the LGBTQ community and to have fun doing the first two!
- We strive to welcome all members of the community, our friends and our families too. As we continue to revive our organization, we are excited for the opportunities to meet you,
- Listen to you and to have fun together as a community!
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Harrell, and I am the new president of Unite Page VA (UPVA) Working in DC, my husband and I bought a “weekend” house in Luray in 2009. It was an easy commute from DC to the Valley and we came up to our part-time home most weekends. Opportunity knocked, and we transitioned to Luray full time in 2014. We knew this was a special place when we would walk to Main Street – an obvious gay couple – and have total strangers wave to us. Of course, we had our share of less pleasant experiences, but the number of friends and neighbors who have supported us during our time here is much greater.
UPVA strives to be a safe place for all of us to be… Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, Queer and Questioning, our Allies, our Friends and hopefully our families. For those who do not have family, we hope we will become your chosen family.
I am very pleased to announce our newest communications tool with the presence of this new website. Along with our Facebook page, we hope to keep you all informed of events and information in and around Page County that could be of interest to you as we all live our daily lives.
Stay tuned to Facebook and favorite this website because as we build new events and activities, we want you to know and participate with us!
Happy Spring and Welcome Back to your Unite Page Virginia.