Gold Coast Pride Collective launches Pride Stride for Mental Health Week

New queer organisation rolls out walking initiative as its first community wellbeing programme.

Told by Claire Lawson · 5 October 2026

The Gold Coast Pride Collective launched Pride Stride this weekend, a walking initiative timed to Queensland Mental Health Week that's designed to get queer locals moving together. It's the new not-for-profit's first community wellbeing programme since its formal launch in September.

The Pride Collective is a registered not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the LGBTQIA+SB community on the Gold Coast. According to the City of Gold Coast's community directory, its mission is to prevent harm by building a strong, inclusive and connected community through evidence-based strategies and partnerships.

Pride Stride is part of that brief. The walking initiative launched during Queensland Mental Health Week — which runs until October 12 — and is designed to foster connection and physical activity in a population that experiences disproportionate mental health challenges.

The Pride Collective formed after the recent closure of Gold Coast Rainbow Communities and the subsequent cancellation of the Gold Coast Pride Festival. Locals organised an expansive Pride Month calendar of events in June to fill the gap, and the new organisation emerged from that work. More than 250 people attended the Pride Collective's black-tie launch event at Hairy Mary's on September 13, QNews reported, hosted by Bebe Gunn and featuring local performers.

Pride Collective President Michael James told QNews the work seeks to provide increased support to some of the most vulnerable in the community. "None of this would be possible without the support of those community members who turned out to support us," he said at the launch.

The organisation will host a range of events and gatherings, including the Gold Coast Community Pride Festival and Fair Day, which is returning in 2026.

Pride Stride matters because it's not a rally or a march — it's a regular, low-barrier way for queer people to show up, move and be seen doing it. Mental Health Week is the hook, but the structure is what lasts. A walking group costs nothing to join, requires no particular fitness, and doesn't ask anyone to perform anything. It just asks them to turn up.

That's the kind of infrastructure a community builds when it knows what it lost.