UXBRIDGE, Mass. - For the past few years, a group of Uxbridge residents have celebrated Pride Month by decorating a bridge downtown with flags and messages of solidarity for the LGBTQ+ community. While their effort apparently hasn’t been met with acceptance by everyone, they’re not letting it bring them down.

Stephen Mandile, a member of the Uxbridge Board of Selectmen, said the annual Pride flag display on the Alice Bridges Bridge has become a target for vandalism and theft.

“Whether they live here or work here, we want everyone who comes here to feel safe, included and accepted,” Mandile said. “It’s a huge effort, we’ve run into problems with vandalism and theft of the displays. The town created a policy to be able to protect the displays, and they are now protected and the police are involved.”

Mandile was up all night Tuesday watching over the bridge from a nearby parking lot, because he said the suspected vandalism and thefts have been occurring overnight. He added that he doesn’t mind losing a bit of sleep if it helps the cause.

“I’m an Iraq War veteran, I have brothers and sisters in arms who are LGBTQ members,” Mandile said. “Those people mean the world to me, they took care of me when I was injured in Iraq. I’ve gone plenty of days and nights without sleep, so just being out in the parking lot keeping an eye on the bridge didn’t really feel like a big lift to me. It was something easy to do to show my support.”

On Wednesday morning, Mandile was back out by the bridge with Tina Ryan, a fellow Uxbridge resident who helped put some new flags up on the bridge with her children.

“I’m certain there are kids in our community looking for those signs of love and support, and I feel like they’re seeing the wrong message,” Ryan said.

She said the biggest takeaway from the situation has been the outpouring of support from neighbors near and far.

“What’s amazing is we’re getting flags from all over the United States at this point,” Ryan said. “We have people all over central Massachusetts, especially the social justice groups, that are really rallying around us, their members are supporting us.”

And so, Pride Month continues in Uxbridge, undeterred by the ongoing uncertainty. As Mandile and Ryan put it, there’s always another flag waiting to be waved.

“It’s given birth to a great movement here, it grows every year,” Mandile said. “Every year I look forward to it.”

“We put them back up,” Ryan said. “Every time. We’ve done this for years now, they take them down, we put them back up.”