BY DUCK PATERSON
Ladysmith will be starting Pride Month with its first Pride party.
The new Ladysmith Pride Society is holding its first major community event on Sunday, June 2, on 1st Avenue.
“The Pride celebration will be a block party – we wanted to do something smaller for our first year in order to build connections within the community,” said Kezia Cloke, society president. “Our goal is to not only boost tourism in Ladysmith, but to also let the 2SLGBTQIA-plus community members have a space to celebrate Pride in their own community. Pride is a celebration but it is, and always will be, a protest.”
The Ladysmith Pride Society was created one year ago and was officially incorporated as a non-profit society this past fall. There are now five board members plus other volunteers and “a growing number” of members, Cloke said, and more are welcome.
She said the purpose of forming the Ladysmith society was to provide LGBTQ people with a place of community and belonging and to celebrate diversity and promote Pride.
“I saw that Nanaimo and Duncan had their own amazing Pride societies, and we had nothing, yet I knew of so many queer people in Ladysmith,” the president said. “This town is built on volunteerism and giving back to the community, and I knew if I started the society, the volunteers and board members would find their way to us, and they did.”
Cloke said diversity has always existed but it hasn’t always been safe for people to live authentically. She hopes that the work of Pride societies and others will help people gain a “deeper understanding of the spectrum of humans that exist,” and help make room for diversity while dismantling systems that exclude people.
“Society benefits when people from all viewpoints and life experiences are given a seat at the table,” said Cloke.
She said that while she has seen the odd discouraging social media comment, the response to Ladysmith Pride has been overwhelmingly positive. Cloke grew up in Ladysmith and said going to high school in the 2010s as a queer person was tough.
“I felt as though there was no real community for myself, and part of the reason why the Ladysmith Pride Society exists is so that the next generation doesn’t have to feel that way,” she said.
There are “layers of goals” behind this weekend’s block party. The obvious one is for community members to be able to attend a free, fun event celebrating diversity and love, but there is more to it than that.
“On a deeper level, we want people to see the love and acceptance and feel validated, loved, safe, and seen in their identity. We want queer kids to see that they belong and that they matter. We want queer seniors to see a world that is moving towards more acceptance. We want allies to be more educated on how they can support this community,” she said. “We want to spread the love.”
The block party will take place from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will feature vendors, food trucks, a DJ and other entertainment, a photo booth and more. 1st Avenue will be closed between Roberts Street and High Street starting at 7 a.m. For more information, visit http://ladysmithpridesociety.com.
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