With the support of many businesses and organizations, Queer Block Island will be holding its inaugural Pride event Sept 16 through 19. It’s a three-day event with a variety of programming from nature walks to a drag queen cabaret.Started in late 2020, early 2021, Queer Block Island is the result of Austin Morin reaching out to the broader community when he came to the island to work a summer gig at Persephone’s last year. After a few weeks of work, he began to feel isolated, he told The Block Island Times in December, “and found myself asking everyone I met if there any gay people I could connect with. Then, I had an idea to form a meetup group where we could connect some of the local queer people and chat about how to improve life for the LGBTQIA+ community on the island.”Despite the difficulty of meeting in groups during the time of Covid, Morin managed to connect with several other people, and Queer Block Island was up and running. They established a website, and social media platforms. Then they entered a float in the Block Island Fourth of July parade, and began planning for the broader Pride