August 18^th was Montréal’s Pride Parade – as mentioned in a previous blog entry – and the LGBTQ Youth Centre participated in the parade as well as the community day which occurred the day before. I would say both days were very successful and a lot of fun for everyone. To say in the least I was proud of what we had accomplished.

Community Day was bigger for us than previous years. Sure it got off to a rough start – I was late for one, but in the end it worked out better than planned. Actually, I really did not have any expectations since it was my first community day in almost a decade and I had no idea what was in store.

All week Jess and I forced the youths into slave labour and shackled them to the floor until they produced close to 150 cupcakes and many necklaces and pride bracelets. No not really. Not to take anything away from the volunteers but many attendees where very helpful in creating some colourful and sassy confections and jewelry.

Planning for Saturday’s event had its challenges and its lessons. One big lesson, which I should have learned a few weeks back while baking for my nephew’s first birthday, is not to use dollar store icing. The taste was next to horrible. And to make matters worse we mixed in lemon and vanilla extract to try and mask the cheapness. It did not help. But we put that icing on the first batch of “petit gateaux” that just so happened to be burnt on the bottom. So you got a double dose of awesome sauce!

I also learned that making beaded jewelry can be rather frustrating. This thought came to me as I, for the second time, got on my hands and knees chasing after all the beads that fell off my ¾ finished bracelet. I think a few others went through the same ordeal and gave up.

So on the day of the event, after scrambling to look organized, we finally setup and got down to business. We were place right next to the LGBTQ Senior Pride group who was also founded by the Beaconsfield United Church. Many youth showed up to help us attract potential donors to the booth as well as grab attention to our cause. We also gave “Queer Cuts” for a 20$ donation – service provided by Krissy (who is Jess’s girlfriend). Cold refreshing water was also on hand for a small donation. We gave out flyers and business cards and made great friends with the many other LGBTQ people and our supporters.

Overall we made over 600$ and who knows, we might make more with the donation flyers we handed out.

That week leading up to the weekend I was really nervous and excited for the parade. It was my first time officially marching in the parade and it was my first Pride parade in 8 years. We joined up with Project 10 and created a super group of super charged LGBTQ teens. I did not count but we must have had close to 50 of us strutting down the boulevard showing our Pride. That included close to 20 people marching from our own centre (volunteers included).

Though I spent most of the time making sure no one ran under the truck and fending off an angry woman who could not find her pride, I enjoyed myself very much. We had great music until the system over heated, I saw my friends who waved to me from the crowd and I was surrounded by great people!

I would like to send out a special thanks to Krissy for everything she did between the community day and the parade. Jessica is a lucky woman! Also thanks should go out to Gabrielle, Clark, Gabriel, Melissa, Jeremy, Cindy and the awesome Jessica!