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It’s -almost- the most exciting time of the year! HALLOWEEN!!! GSA Kids! Please join us at the back of Jubilee park, by the ponds, on October 29th from 7pm - 9pm for a hot dog and marshmallow roast! We will be joined by our councillor Erin Stevenson who will hopefully have some scary stories to tell us, maybe even about Spruce Grove! Yes, you can wear costumes, but no dangly and flammable bits over the fire!! Also, you must dress for the weather. It’s the end of October in rural Alberta, DRESS WARMLY!!!! Please be mindful of others and cultural appropriation when planning your costumes. *If you have different dietary needs, you are absolutely welcome to bring your own hot dogs, veggie dogs, etc. ALSO!!! In the next few weeks and months we will be introducing new groups and partnerships as we continue our endeavour to reach out even more into the community! One of the newest steps we are taking is SAFE (Support & Advocacy for Everyone). This is an 18+ group for 2SLGBTQ+ folk, parents and caregivers of our 2SLGBTQ2S+ youth, as well as educators, and professionals, or honestly anyone!! We have been honoured that St. Andrew’s United Church has given us the use of their huge main hall and enormous grounds for our Spruce Grove GSA youth for the past three and a half years! As we continue to reach out into the community, The Play Café has enthusiastically offered their space for our adult meetings!!! We are a community group run by volunteers. The costs of running our programs for youth, and now adults do add up. Please contribute where you can by saving recyclable bottles or making a donation. We run a pantry program for youth in need of snacks and lunches, we have started a binder exchange program, and we are helping our adult youth cover the cost of medical supplies when needed. Please consider donating gift cards, non perishable items, or bottles! This would help us greatly!! Thank you for supporting our diverse community! Happy Halloween!    
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We are excited to announce that we are expanding!! Our Spruce Grove GSA Society will be introducing a new group SAFE - Support & Advocacy for Everyone! This is an adult group for 2SLGBTQ+ folk, parents and caregivers of our 2SLGBTQ+ youth, as well as educators, professionals, and anyone who would like to participate! Please come learn, share, help to educate and advocate for our gender diverse community! More information will be coming in the next few weeks!  October GSAs! Please take a careful look at the dates, times AND locations! We will be outdoors for all GSAs, please dress for the weather. Our time still runs from 7-8 pm on Friday October 8th, we are outside at St. Andrew’s United Church. On October 29th, we will be meeting at Jubilee Park for halloween campfire! All dates and times could change depending on the weather. See you soon! It’s October! I absolutely love the change from summer colours to the red and gold leaves of autumn. We are still meeting outside until the cases of covid in our communities reduce. Our guest on October 8th, is Michelle Gruhlke, a councillor with the City of Spruce Grove and a local business owner since 2004. Michelle has been involved in many inclusive incentives in our community throughout the years. Bring questions for Michelle about Spruce Grove. She will also be bringing a special fuzzy guest!! On October 29th join us at Jubilee Park with Erin Stevenson. Erin is also a councillor with the City of Spruce Grove. Erin was integral in our city’s conversion therapy ban, as well as pushing for the rainbow crosswalk to be painted! Join us for a Halloween fire and maybe we can come up with some scary stories to tell! Halloween is a very special time for our 2SLGBTQ+ community! It’s a time when everyone can dress how they would like, as whoever they like, and there are no questions! Halloween is ALSO one of our favourite holidays! We are having our annual Halloween party! But it will be a little different this year. We will be meeting outdoors at Jubilee Park on Friday, October 29th. Please bring a chair, or blanket to sit on. There will be a ton of treats and marshmallows to roast! You may dress in a Halloween costume, if you would like, but keep in mind we will be outdoors, and the weather could be cold! Dress for the weather!!! Everyone is required to wear a mask when in close contact, have a proof of vaccination for Covid-19 on file, and do a health check before attending GSA. No coughing, sneezing, sore throat, fever, body aches, etc. Check out the following events happening in and around our communities!! Events & Activities! Monday, October 11th is National Coming Out day! Please only come out when you are ready. Never let someone push you into coming out. Coming out is intensely personal and private to each person, how you come out is your choice! Coming out does not just happen once. It is a process that happens over again throughout your life. If or when you come out, please do so safely! https://www.thetrevorproject.org/trvr_support_center/coming-out/ 2021 Alberta GSA Conference! “This year all workshops will be presented online from Nov 22-26th. We were originally hoping to have in-person events in Peace River & Edmonton, however due to covid-19 health restrictions, the conference will be taking place exclusively online. When you fill out the form, please only select the online option.” Keep an eye on their pages for all the exciting updates and information! https://linktr.ee/abgsaconferrence Spruce Grove Public Library has a list of events and fun, happening all month long! The Spruce Grove Public Library has a wonderful opportunity to get close to the animals in the Calgary Zoo! Get a fabulous interactive tour from the comfort of your couch! “Join an expert conservation educator from the Calgary Zoo for an interactive tour through one of the zoo regions!” https://sgpl.ca/events/special-events/virtual-zoo-program “Take a tour of the world-renowned Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology without leaving your home! During this interactive virtual visit, our expert will guide you through our galleries and exhibits.” https://sgpl.ca/events/special-events/virtual-visit-with-dinosaurs At SGPL, “join our Talking Circles as we share various gifts, wisdom, stories and teachings from our local Indigenous community and neighbors. Listen deeply with a profound opportunity to understand, learn and establish a sense of community in a safe sacred space. Gain a mutual understanding of one another regardless of our various backgrounds.” Check out all of the events happening all month long! https://sgpl.ca/programs/fall-programs Stony Plain FCSS – Stony Plain FCSS is seeking folks from our 2SLGBTQ+ community in Stony Plain, Spruce Grove and Parkland County. Are you able to connect and help work on creating a Poverty Reduction Action Plan? Please reach out to Sharida: 780-963-8583 stonyplainFCSS.com scsillag@stonyplain.com The Stony Plain Youth Centre – Connect with the fabulous folks at the Stony Plain Youth Centre! They have events and activities happening weekly, all month long! https://www.stonyplain.com/en/live/youth-centre.aspx Please Help our GSA grow together! Some of the ways you can contribute: Monetary donations, donations of non-perishable snacks for our food pantry program, click on the donate button on our website, spend time with us at different events or resource fairs. Contributions of any size will be used to support youth through the purchase of materials that will be used at our meetings, as well as to fund events within the community. We are a 100% volunteer-run organization; all funds will go to ensuring we can continue to offer services to youth. Please Donate your bottles to the Spruce Grove GSA Society! We will gladly arrange to pick up bottles once a month. This will greatly help with our fundraising! Thank you to the folks who are currently donating to our GSA! Non-perishable food donations The past few years we have seen an increase with some youth, either in person or through social media, who might require a few extra snacks through the day or at school. Through a generous donation by the Rotary Club in Spruce Grove, our GSA has expanded to include a snack pantry for youth. If you are a youth looking for extra snacks throughout the week, or if you know of a youth who might need some snacks, please connect with us for a local drop off for snacks. All requests are 100% confidential. Medical supplies, teaching visits, affirming doula services Our board has approved the purchase of medical supplies required to assist our transgender youth ages 18-24. Please reach out to our GSA at sprucegrovegsa@gmail.com to be put in touch with Kaye! Information can be provided on supplies required, we will also arrange for teaching visits to provide instruction and help on administering hormone injections for our transgender youth age 18-24. We are also excited to have Sara provide affirming doula services with our community! If you, or anyone you know is looking for care, education, or emotional support, please reach out to Sara at sara@risenhealth.ca More information is also available at Risen Health on their website - https://risenhealth.ca Support looks different for everyone and it is the doulas job to find what suits you and your family best. !!!We are also looking for donations of gently used binders!!! Many of our youth are in need, and we would like to help them achieve this goal! Important Phone Numbers BriteLine 1-844-70(BRITE) 1-844-702-7483 https://www.briteline.ca Edmonton's FIRST Mental Health and Wellness Help Line A provincial support line for the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Times can be tough and now there is a dedicated line for our community. Reach out when you need help at 1-844-70(BRITE) Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868 Text CONNECT 686868 kidshelpphone.ca/what-is-kids-help-phone 24-hour, anonymous phone counseling for children and youth, 100% confidential they do not trace calls, they do not have call display, you do not have to tell them your name. Trans lifeline http://www.translifeline.org The Hotline: US: 1-877-565-8860 Canada: 1-877-330-6366 Need to talk? Call! Our peer support hotline is run by and for trans people. 211 Alberta Canadian Mental Health Association-Edmonton https://ab.211.ca https://edmonton.cmha.ca 211 (phone) 211(text) 24-hour distress line Resources for Albertans daily needs. When you see someone in distress, you can help before police or emergency services are needed by calling 211 and pressing 3 to dispatch the 24/7 Crisis Diversion Team. The Spruce Grove GSA Society respectfully acknowledges that we are situated in Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people.  Recently we have been receiving a lot of questions about our Covid-19 response. Why do we ask for pre-registration with our GSA before each meeting? We began as a drop-in GSA January 2018. Many meetings would see up to 28 youth each GSA. We switched to pre-registration for our twice monthly GSA meetings, when cases of Covid-19 began. When the Alberta government put restrictions on groups, we followed those numbers accordingly. With cases surging, and few restrictions, we have capped our GSA at 15 people (unless changes occur), including adult volunteers. Registering for each GSA keeps our numbers lower so we can properly distance while we are outdoors and indoors.Registering also gives us a chance to ensure our youth do a health check prior to attending GSA. Why are our youth and adults required to do a health check, not just a Covid check? Prior to Covid, our youth and adult volunteers were able to attend the GSA without doing a health check. With the surging of cases, the decision was made early on to ensure all youth and adults who attend the GSA are as healthy as possible. A lot of our youth have jobs, attend schools, and other groups/teams. Requesting youth and adults only attend the GSA when they are healthy lessens the chance of Covid or other viruses spreading through our communities. This also helps to ensure our youth and adults can continue to be employed in their occupations without a disruption for Covid tests. Why do the youth and adults who attend the GSA continue to wear masks, even if they are vaccinated? The concern of viruses through community spread is a very real threat. Covid -19 vaccines are effective in preventing the disease in individuals, but it is currently unknown what degree of vaccination will be sufficient to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus and achieve herd immunity. We feel that the continuation of masking, whether indoors or outdoors, is very beneficial to the health of our GSA youth, the folks who attend St. Andrew’s United Church for groups and functions, and for our greater community at large. Masking reduces the risk of transmission. Do you require youth to be vaccinated with the Covid 19 immunization to attend GSA? Our Spruce Grove GSA does require the Covid 19 vaccination for all youth, adults, and volunteers attending in person indoor and outdoor meetings. Alternately, a negative Covid test is acceptable if it has been done prior to each GSA meeting, within a 72-hour period. We require all participants to be vaccinated for a few reasons.
Thank you to our youth, caregivers, and volunteers who make every effort to ensure the health and safety of our communities.  |