What does Pride Mean at Rose Villa?

June 8, 2020 - Vassar Byrd, CEO | Community | Events | Residents

What does Pride Mean at Rose Villa?

Honestly, I don’t feel competent to write about what Pride means from the perspective of the entire community – there are WAY too many different perspectives and experiences here!  But I can tell you what Pride means to me.

It is everything the word itself conjures – belief, courage, joy, strength.  The experience of turning hate or exclusion into community and creation.  The process of finding yourself and finding what is important to you and discovering you are not alone in those beliefs and values.  It is a deep appreciation for how important different is.  The precious value of a unique point of view.  The actual service to each other of calling out what’s taken for granted, what hasn’t been seen, opening people’s hearts and minds to the gorgeous social tapestry we are all part of, that can’t exist without us.  Stepping right through discomfort and even sometimes fear, into that beauty.

Of course there is road to travel.  Rose Villa is not nirvana.  But, oh, the people you meet, the love you find, the life we can make together….that is Pride to me.

Vassar Byrd