The Minnesota Vikings’ first booth at Twin Cities Pride at Loring Park in Minneapolis attracted 2,000 people over the course of last weekend.
”The weekend was a huge success,” said Amy Werdine, the team’s Guest Services Coordinator. “We had 2,000 people for our various sign-ups to win items, which included authentic helmets, “SKOL” Pride T-shirts and four tickets to our home game against the Buffalo Bills.
”It was amazing to see a current and former player come out and interact with people attending the festival as well as sign autographs. It also was great to see our Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Warren, come show his support after the Parade on Sunday. We are excited we were part of Pride this year and can’t wait to be back next year.”
Stephen Weatherly, a Vikings defensive end and a straight ally, manned the booth part of Sunday, volunteering when he heard the event was being held, Werdine said. He was joined by former Vikings defensive tackle Esera Tuaolo, who came out as gay in 2003 after retiring.
The Vikings gave away rainbow eye-black stickers with the team’s “SKOL” chant on them and had a drawing for people to win rainbow “SKOL” T-shirts.
