Houma will help celebrate Pride Month this weekend with its first LGBTQ+ Family Pride Picnic.
The event is scheduled for Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Houma-Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, located at 114 Tourist Drive in Gray.
June is Pride Month, which seeks to recognize work done for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other gender-diverse people.
Event co-organizer Julienne Hebert Voisin said community interest in the event is already larger than expected. A mother of two young sons, she wanted her children to see the diversity in families and create a safe space for like-minded people.
There’s a treasure hunt going on right in our own backyard.
Look closer at the local ice cream parlor or cemetery and you just might find geocaches close by.
Collecting the small tokens, known as geocaching, is a popular recreational activity, in which people can participate using a GPS, mobile device, or other mode of navigation to find geocaches at specific marked coordinates.
Participants record their finds online to show their friends and fellow geocachers where they have been, and those who collect all 22 caches in Terrebonne Parish can receive a Houma Geocoin to mark the achievement.
First established 2015, Houma hosts one of only 50 GeoTours in the whole world.
Attendees had to wear masks (the non-Mardi Gras kind) and take a temperature check to participate.
With an assortment of glitter, feathers, green, yellow and purple paints second-grader Elise Marcel, fourth-grader Hannah Hessel and fifth-graders Morgan Marcel and Kaylin Hessel came along with their families to decorate masks.
Purple is my favorite color,” said Kaylin Hessel while working on her second mask, “I’m making them for my friends to make them happy.”
Executive Director Sondra Corbitt said the event is the start of more local programming for the visitors bureau.
“We are planning quarterly events, providing opportunities to learn about tourism, and get locals invested in our own attractions and restaurants,” said Corbitt.