It took 35 minutes for the Pride Portland! parade to complete its route Saturday from Monument Square, up Congress Street, down High Street and into Deering Oaks park.

With 77 marching groups participating, up from 61 last year, it was one of the largest turnouts in the parade’s more than 30-year history, said Chris O’Connor, co-chairman of the steering committee of Pride Portland!

The annual parade and festival at Deering Oaks was a highlight of the 10 Days of Pride observance celebrating the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, ally and asexual community. The event, which started June 12, included a dog owners meet-up, a family day at the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, a picnic on the Eastern Prom and panel discussions. It concludes Sunday with a tea dance at 12:30 p.m. on Peaks Island.

“We wanted there to be something for everyone,” said O’Connor.

O’Connor said enthusiasm for the event was renewed after Pride Portland! took over the planning and organization last year.

Parade marchers began to assemble at Monument Square hours before the noon parade. The senior youth group of the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church decorated a car to be driven by intern minister Lyn Marshall.

“I think it is important that people of different faiths support gay pride,” said Hope McCarthy, 14, of Cape Elizabeth, a member of the senior youth group.

Melissa Marable helped organize dozens of her co-workers from the T-Mobile call center in Oakland.

“We are an equal opportunity employer. We have a diversity and inclusion group and we strive for an atmosphere to be yourself at work,” said Marable.

Katie Rutherford, development director at the Frannie Peabody Center in Portland, put finishing touches on a giant globe assembled from 4,000 condom packets donated by condom manufacturer One Condom. Rutherford said she hoped the globe, suspended over the bed of a pickup truck, fit the parade’s theme of “one world one love one family.”

“Every continent is a different color condom,” noted Rutherford.

Frannie Peabody became a trailblazer for the creation of AIDS services in Maine after her grandson was diagnosed with the disease. He died in 1984. Peabody served as the parade marshal in 2001, two weeks before her death at 98.

This year’s parade marshals were Gia Drew, program coordinator for Equality Maine, president of Maine Transgender Network Inc. and board member of the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network’s southern Maine chapter, and Doug Kimmel, executive director of SAGE Maine, a services and advocacy group for the elder gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

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