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Trinity Growing Spaces Tour – Trinity College

Please join us for a walking tour of our current and aspiring growing spaces on campus! Hosted by Professor Nicole Spiegelaar, Associate Director of Trinity’s Sustainability Initiative, she will share how students are reconnecting to the land through the various urban agriculture initiatives at the College. Students from Trinity’s Food Systems Lab will share their learning, including coursework, independent research, hands-on experiences, citizen science observations and more.

The tour will end with refreshments and more opportunity for discussion with the students leading urban agriculture and sustainability initiatives at U of T today.

Limited space available for this event.

Note: This is an outdoor walking tour, comfortable clothes and shoes are recommended.

Register Now

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Concern growing about monkeypox vaccine availability before valley Pride events – KESQ

Concern growing about monkeypox vaccine availability before valley Pride events - KESQ

The push for more monkeypox vaccines continues in the Coachella Valley and Riverside County.

“It’s moving way, way, way too slow,” said Cathedral City resident David Wichman.

Vaccine access continues to be a key struggle in the fight against the rapidly spreading viral outbreak, Wichman said.

Riverside County reported one new monkeypox case Wednesday, bringing the total to 71 countywide. 66 of those cases were in the Coachella Valley.

With tight eligibility restrictions and low supply from the state and federal governments, county Public Health Director Dr. Kim Saruwatari took the opportunity to call for help Tuesday in a state Senate monkeypox committee hearing.

“We need to figure out a way to get more vaccine out into the community faster,” Saruwatari said.

As of Tuesday, Riverside County had received 5,384 vaccine doses, according to the California Dept. of Public Health, which are being distributed through Borrego Health, DAP Health, Eisenhower Health and Kaiser Permanente.

The county requested 1,500 more doses – but that request was not immediately approved. Instead, 750 doses were offered which are expected to arrive Wednesday or Thursday, a county spokesperson said.

Dr. Phyllis Ritchie, CEO and founder of Palm Spring STI clinic PS Test, has tried to get vaccine doses to distribute to her patients, a complicated process she said has not yet been successful.

“We have a horde of patients that are qualified to get the monkeypox vaccine,” Ritchie said. “They’re not part of Borrego, they’re not part of Eisenhower, they’re not part of DAP – and they are unable to access the vaccine. They just don’t even know who to call.”

For Wichman, concern is growing with less than two months until Pride celebrations kick off in Palm Springs.

“Tens of thousands of people come to Palm Springs for that event,” Wichman said. “There are numerous events and parties and people are going to be hooking up. And there’s lots of opportunity for monkeypox to spread.”

He is calling for open vaccination clinics to get many people vaccinated quickly.

“If we’re not vaccinating people by the middle of September, and that’s really cutting it close…within the next few weeks, we’re it’s going to be too late,” Wichman said.

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Pride strong and growing in rural Saskatchewan, community leaders say | Globalnews.ca

Pride strong and growing in rural Saskatchewan, community leaders say  | Globalnews.ca

While the province’s big city Pride events are well-known and regularly attract thousands, community leaders outside of Regina and Saskatoon say Pride is thriving in small-town Saskatchewan as well.

It’s an important trend to preserve, they say, with some explaining to Global News that feelings of isolation and loneliness can be exacerbated when living in a rural community.

“It can be harder in smaller communities, and rural communities,” said Prince Albert Pride Co-chair LJ Tyson.

“A lot of the people in the Queer community who I grew up with had to leave to bigger cities in order to find themselves and their people.”

Prince Albert Pride kicked off its Pride week activities this past weekend in part with the introduction of a new safe spaces campaign.

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Over the coming months the organization hopes to begin distributing pride window decals to local businesses which can prove they’ve made efforts to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for the LGBTQ2 community, such as by having gender-neutral washrooms.

Tyson hopes this campaign, along with the rest of the Prince Albert Pride week events, can help people feel secure in holding onto their rural roots.

“Even just visiting bigger city centres, you know there’s that general feeling of more diversity and accepting ways of life,” they said.

“But I always encourage people to make things better for the next generation. That’s why I choose to stay and live in a smaller city like Prince Albert. It’s so important we make our presence known in these smaller centres and create a better life for the ones who come after us.”

Read more:

Inside Pride: Exploring the lesser-known part of the term 2SLGBTQQIA+

Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation is holding its first ever Pride week this month from June 13 to 17.

Events include a parade, flag-raising and two-spirit sharing circles.

Organizer Sheldon Gaetz told Global News that he too has felt the need to move to a larger city in the past.

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Gaetz hopes that embracing Pride on the reserve can help others feel like they have a choice.

“In the smaller communities, we don’t have the parades, and we don’t have the centres to go talk to people,” Gaetz said.

“Sometimes you do feel alone. And it’s nice to know in these small communities or on the reserve that there is support for you.”

Read more:

Labelling a lesbian: How stereotypes harm and help the community

Southwest Saskatchewan Pride, meanwhile, is celebrating the opening of Swift Current’s first Queer Resource Centre.

“This was a project that was really a pipe dream for many years,” said Southwest Saskatchewan Pride boardmember Shaun Hanna.

“Southwest Saskatchewan Pride has been around since 2012. We’ve been around a while and we had always talked about opening a centre. We’re just getting it off the ground now.”

Its Pride activities kick off in July, in part so that its schedule doesn’t overlap with that of other small-town Pride festivals.

Pride events are also occurring in communities like Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Weyburn, Humboldt, North Battleford and Foam Lake.

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Hanna said he’s seen Pride organizations “flourish” in smaller Saskatchewan communities over the past decade, and that the hard work put in by these communities is improving life for all.

“There was always these efforts that unfolded throughout the course of the twentieth century to try to bring rural areas and small towns under a sway of a national consensus of what middle-class life ought to look like,” Hanna said.

“I think we’ve really taken it for granted that rural areas and small towns and sort of inhospitable to queer life. Groups like ours, we really are are sort of pushing back against that narrative that queer people can only thrive in those major metropolitan spaces.”


Click to play video: 'Global’s Inside Pride explores issues inside the 2SGBTQQIA+ community'







Global’s Inside Pride explores issues inside the 2SGBTQQIA+ community


Global’s Inside Pride explores issues inside the 2SGBTQQIA+ community

© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Growing list of big, traditional C.O. events set to return this year after 2-year COVID hiatus – KTVZ

Growing list of big, traditional C.O. events set to return this year after 2-year COVID hiatus - KTVZ

(Update: adding information and video)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down many of the High Desert’s traditional yearly events for the foreseeable future in 2020, few if any people imagined it would take two full years for a return to normalcy.

“Everybody thought it would be a minor inconvenience for a month or so,” Beau Eastes, marketing director at the Old Mill District in Bend, said Wednesday. “I think when we had to shut down Bend Brewfest for a second time, it shocked us.”

Brewfest will look different this year, too. Due to construction at the amphitheater, vendors will set up throughout the Old Mill District, the event is only two days in May and fewer tickets will be sold this year compared to previous years.

 “It’s going to be almost a totally different event,” Eastes told NewsChannel 21 Wednesday. Eastes said the event may stay in the Old Mill District for future events.

Bend Brewfest is one of several major events returning to Bend this summer. The SELCO Pole Pedal Paddle is back in May, the Bend Marathon and Half returns April 10, Bend Park and Recreation’s Pet Parade returns July 4 and the Home and Garden Show by the Central Oregon Builders Association is back the weekend of May 6.

COBA had to cancel its first show ever in 2020.

“When we had to cancel it, it was devastating for a lot of our local small businesses.,” COBA Senior Vice President Mandy Weidman said. “They use this opportunity to advertise one time a year, and it’s really their chance to get that exposure within the community.”

Add in a record number of summer concerts at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater and a host of other events large and small, and summer promises to be a return to something much closer to normal, if COVID-19 trends continue.