Tonic's Pride 2022 in Review
This year is the first Pride for us with a community thriving at Tonic@Bankhouse. We have residents settled in, building friendships with their neighbours and attending events and activities.
Pride 2022 marked 50 years since the Gay Liberation Front's first Pride protest march in London, on 1st July 1972, where hundreds of LGBT+ people and their allies marched for their safety and freedom.
Our work today was only made possible thanks to the brave people who marched 50 years ago, and these are the people who we will there for in their later life, when being out and proud should never be compromised.
Tonic@Bankhouse Resident Events
We have started quite a few new resident activities and held events at Tonic@Bankhouse this Pride, including our first Gardening Club, which is working towards transforming the community garden spaces into colourful, lush areas to enjoy together. We watched PRIDE for our June Film Club, visited the Tate Modern for an early exclusive of their LGBTQIA+ History Tour and launched our resident-led creative arts programme with Create.
donations
This Pride, many organisations decided to support Tonic and raise funds for our work, by donating a portion of their proceeds or holding fundraising events. In total we have raised over £8,000 this June and July!
We would like to thank all of the below for this:
East End Prints
Hachette Pride Network
Goodstuff
Enter Gallery
Fragomen
Habito
Scandit
and a HUGE special thank you to Geoff Pine, one of our founders, and his partner, Richard for walking the Camino de Santiago this July and raising over £5,000 for Tonic along the way! You can read more about this and donate here.
Tonic residents attending Pride in London
You may have previously seen that our gorgeous Tonic residents had a great time at the Pride in London, 50th anniversary march. We were delighted that our residents went along and celebrated with our partners One Housing for the march, everyone had a joyous time and are still talking about it now!
Hachette Pride’s LGBT+ affirming books donation to our Community Library
Hachette Pride visited the residents and team at Tonic@Bankhouse and donated 25 LGBT+ affirming books to our community library space. We are so pleased to now have all of this new LGBT+ affirming literature for our residents to enjoy.
At the end of June, they hosted their Pride in Writing 2022 event at the Apple Tree Pop-Up in Clerkenwell. The event was an evening with LGBTQ+ authors, with readings and discussions. We are very grateful for their choice to raise funds for Tonic on the night and our lovely Sherine, also popped along to let everyone know a little bit about what we do.
