With reporting by Mariah Joyce

Pride will again bring a busy calendar of events, parties, and celebrations to Seattle. Below, you’ll find a roster of Pride 2016 events on and around Capitol Hill. Pride on Capitol Hill got started over the weekend in the best possible way to prepare for a party: tidying up… and a haircut.

This year, the Clean Sweep event included the opportunity for people to give their own appearances a makeover as well, in the form of a free haircut in Cal Anderson Park. After the morning neighborhood cleanup on Sunday, June 5, student stylists from the Gary Manuel Institute and two Capitol Hill outreach workers from the Downtown Seattle Association gathered in Cal Anderson Park. From 2-6 PM they offered free haircuts to all comers as a way for the DSA to reach at-risk members of Capitol Hill.

DSA’s Mike Amacker says that while he has been participating in similar free haircut events in Seattle for about two years, this is the first time he has held one in Capitol Hill. Clean Sweep organizers heard about the program and Amacker’s desire to expand into Capitol Hill, and encouraged him to piggyback on Sunday’s Clean Sweep event. “We (DSA) are new to the Capitol Hill area, and we thought, ‘What better way to get our faces out there?’” said Amacker. Amacker says he has held about one free-haircut event per week for the past two years, and cuts on average 300 heads of hair per month. Over the years, he has found that cutting hair is a good way to earn trust and get people to rely on him for other support services. “People think, ‘If I can trust them to cut my hair, maybe I can trust them to get me into rehab, or to get me a house,’” said Amacker.

Within the four-hour time period, the stylists cut 24 heads of hair Sunday in Cal Anderson. Some of the customers were homeless, and others just happened to be in the park and stop by to see what was happening. More than one customer had heard about the hair cutting event while they were volunteering at Clean Sweep in the morning and decided to drop by. Amacker considers the event a success. “All in all we didn’t do too bad for our first event in the Capitol Hill area,” he said.

Once you get a haircut and do a little tidying up of your own, here’s the roster of 2016 Pride happenings on and around Capitol Hill. Happy Pride.

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