Boonton Rainbow Pride Friendsgiving to aid food pantry, LGBTQ group – Daily Record
BOONTON — For most people, the holiday season is about bringing family and loved ones together. But for members of the LGBTQ+ community who are too often estranged from their families, it can be a darker time.
For those who feel they have no place to go, no one to celebrate with, Boonton Rainbow Pride has an answer this weekend.
Representing the growing LGBTQ+ community in a town that largely has embraced its new neighbors, Boonton Rainbow Pride has cultivated a coalition of community partners that includes local businesses, the Boonton Elks Lodge, the local library, town officials and even the Parks and Recreation Department.
Hundreds attended the inaugural Boonton Rainbow Pride Day event in June 2021 and came again for a second event this past summer.
On Saturday, Boonton Rainbow Pride is inviting people back for a special “Friendsgiving” dinner from 4 to 7 p.m. at the century-old Elks Lodge on Cornelia Street. A suggested donation of $20 gains entry to a buffet-style dinner, cash bar and live entertainment from the Sisterly Harmonies.
Proceeds from the event will benefit Boonton Rainbow Pride, the Boonton Elks Lodge and Edge New Jersey, the Denville-based nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ community members suffering from AIDS or in need of other support.
“It will be a gathering of chosen family, people who love and support each other unconditionally,” said Boonton Rainbow Pride co-founder Susannah Pitman. “This is an event where all are welcome no matter who you are.”
It’s appropriate that the dinner will be hosted by Boonton Elks Lodge, which also has embraced the LGTBQ+ community and counts several of them among its leadership.
Carol Morokoff, a trial attorney who was “in on the ground floor” of launching Boonton Rainbow Pride in 2021, joined the Elks in 2009 and found a welcoming environment for her and other members of the community.
“To join the Elks, you have to be over 21, of good moral character and believe in God. That’s it,” said Morokoff, a past exalted ruler of the lodge. “The Elks are truly non-judgmental. We want to be a home to those who want to do good works, help the community and want to be charitable. And if you happen to be gay, that’s fine. We’re OK with that.”
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Morokoff said she was part of a wave of LGBTQ+ pioneers who in the early 1990s found a safe and welcoming gathering spot at a nightclub occupying the historic former Boonton Train Station on Myrtle Avenue. Over the years, ownership changed along with the name, from Locomotion to Connexions and later Trax.
“That nightclub became the hub,” said Jefferson Harman, an early patron who eventually took over its popular karaoke company, Wildcat Entertainment.
Back then, there were only a handful of clubs catering to the gay community, Harman said, and many didn’t last. Police in those early days also would stake out the Boonton club to pull over customers in their cars after they exited the parking lot.
But eventually, Harman said, that harassment eased and the nightclub “joined the community in a way that it didn’t work out in other towns.”
It closed in 2016 before a new owner renovated the building into a popular restaurant, Boonton Station 1904. Harman’s karaoke then moved to the Elk’s Lodge, where it drew an increasingly diverse audience.
Over the years the club attracted a number of LGBTQ+ plus community members who eventually moved to Boonton. Many of them became downtown store and business owners, while many other businesses in town display rainbow stickers and other symbols of welcoming the LGBTQ+ community.
Several restaurants in town are donating food to the Friendsgiving buffet. Boonton Coffee is collecting canned goods that will be donated to the local Loaves and Fishes pantry.
More people in the LGBTQ+ community moved to town after the 2021 Boonton Rainbow Pride event, said another co-founder and Friendsgiving organizer, Linda Hogoboom. Hogoboom said the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community now extends to the high school.
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“The Board of Education in September approved an official faculty advisor for Club Alliance, an LGBTQ+ student club at the high school,” she said. “This elevates it to a sanctioned, supported student group.”
Another Boonton Rainbow Pride co-founder, Lindsey Weisman, stressed that “anyone” is welcome to share Friendsgiving with them.
“We want to make it open to anybody who doesn’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving,” she said. “It’s been really fun to put together. We’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping to make this an annual thing.”
William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com
Twitter: @wwesthoven