Lori Panarello, founder of North Fork Pride Parade, dies at 67: ‘truly a force for good’

Lori Panarello, a beloved North Fork community organizer whose vision helped bring the first Pride Parade to Greenport, has died. 

North Fork Women announced her death in an Oct. 9 Facebook post, calling Ms. Panarello “truly a force for good” and remembering her warmth, humor, generosity and determination to make others feel welcome. She was 67.

“Many of us know Lori as the driving force behind bringing the first Pride Parade to Greenport,” the organization wrote. “What began as her vision has become an extraordinary celebration of love, visibility and community, growing larger and stronger each year.”

Lori Cohen, a close friend who met Ms. Panarello through North Fork Women about eight years ago, said she was diagnosed with a brain tumor around Thanksgiving.

“She fought hard,” Ms. Cohen told The Suffolk Times.

Ms. Panarello and her wife, Catherine Canadé, bought a summer home in Mattituck in 2014 and moved to the North Fork full time during the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2020, she opened Craft Hair in Greenport after working as global artistic director for KMS Hair.

Craft Hair remembered its founder as a talented stylist with a larger-than-life personality and generous heart. The salon said it gave Ms. Panarello a chance to return to “the artistry of hair, the relationships she built, and the simple joy of making people feel beautiful.”

Ms. Cohen described Ms. Panarello as smart, funny and caring, with “an open heart.”

“She would give you the shirt off her back,” Ms. Cohen said. “She did so many things that nobody knows about, helping people who were just going through a hard time. It’s just how she was.”

Ms. Panarello also founded Beauty United Against Bullying in 2016. Through the nonprofit, she recruited salons in New York, Atlanta, Salt Lake City and elsewhere to take a stand against bullying and discrimination.

“I always wanted to do something to help people who were picked on or abused — whether it was gay youth or people who were being bullied for different reasons,” Ms. Panarello told The Suffolk Times in 2023.

For Ms. Cohen, Ms. Panarello’s advocacy was rooted in the courage required to come out at a time when LGBTQ people had far fewer public role models. She recalled that both women had come out before Ellen DeGeneres’ widely publicized coming-out moment in 1997.

“I’ve gotten emails from people who tell me how she has changed their lives by just making Greenport such a welcoming place,” Ms. Cohen said.

That experience shaped Ms. Panarello’s effort to create the first North Fork Pride Parade and Festival. She worked with the LGBTQ Network, local businesses, village officials and volunteers to bring the event to Greenport in 2023.

“This parade means more to me than I can say,” she said before the inaugural event. “It’s a celebration of the struggle of the past – and it’s important for the future.”

Her dedication led The Suffolk Times to name Ms. Panarello as its 2023 Community Leader of the Year.

“Seeing that in her own imagination and then making it happen in such a pivotal time, I think deserves recognition,” Eleanor Thomas, then president of North Fork Women, said when Ms. Panarello received the honor.

The parade created a place for LGBTQ residents, families, business owners and allies to celebrate publicly in a community Ms. Panarello believed needed visibility and connection.

For Ms. Cohen, the defining image of Ms. Panarello’s legacy remains the first North Fork Pride Parade. The friends decorated Ms. Cohen’s truck, with Ms. Panarello riding in the back, unsure how Greenport would respond.

“When we got to the corner of Main and Front, there were thousands of people,” Ms. Cohen said. “We all just started crying because never did we expect that in our little town.”

Ms. Cohen said the parade, Craft Hair and the people Ms. Panarello helped will carry her influence forward.

“She’s made Greenport this welcoming town for everybody who lives there,” she said. “Not just gay men and lesbians who are marching in a Pride parade — for everybody.”

North Fork Women urged residents to fly Pride flags in Ms. Panarello’s memory, calling them a celebration of “her unwavering belief in equality, and the community she worked so hard to bring together.”