For the month of June, SPSC celebrated two different, yet connected, cultures. Throughout the majority of June, we celebrated Black and African American culture, and during the last week of June, we celebrated Pride, which is a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.
We focused on West Africa, and the Gullah Geechee corridor along the coast of South Carolina stretching down to the northern part of Florida. We also did a virtual field trip to the Northwest National African American Museum. (We hope to have an in-person field trip there soon, but the Museum is still operating virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.) Local performers, and dear friends of our wonderful fitness instructor, Cindy House, joined us—Fatimah and Dawud Mateen brought live music and dance to the Center, creating a magical environment where we all enjoyed connection to our bodies through movement!
During the last week of June, SPSC celebrated the LGBTQ+ community—we kicked things off by walking in the Pride Parade through downtown Seattle on June 26th. It was a wonderful time and great to have a variety of participation from staff, Seniors, and Board members. The day was filled with lots of color and love and we couldn’t think of a better way to begin our Pride week at SPSC! At the Center, we had presentations on the two main Pride Flags; there is the traditional 6-colored rainbow flag which has been around since 1979, and the new Progressive Pride Flag, that came out in 2018, which includes a chevron pattern along the hoist of the flag with white, pink, light blue, brown and black for our trans community and all of our Black and People of Color Queer folks. We also had one of our own Seniors, Colleen Paul (they/them), who identifies as non-binary and genderfluid, speak about their journey.
As SPSC lives its values of inclusion and respect for everyone, we embrace the journeys of all our Seniors providing a safe space for everyone!