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June 11, 2024 –  Donovan Harmel, 78, grew up on a farm in Rugby, North Dakota.”Being gay, I don’t even think that was term that was used at the time. It wasn’t frowned on as much as it was like it didn’t exist, he said. “I panhandled, I lived on the street, stuff like that,” he recalled.

Health department data shows people in the LGBTQ+ community have a higher chance of suffering from substance use.

“People, a lot of people aren’t accepted by the community so they don’t accept themselves. They are constantly playing a part of a world that really isn’t theirs,” said Harmel.

Harmel says he stopped drinking 47 years ago and eventually started feeling free to be himself.

He even walked in one of the first Pride parades.

“There were probably a couple dozen of us who walked down Nicollet,” he said.

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