Rainbow Calgary Elders: Building Community, One Coffee Meet-up at a Time
"We recognise, as the older generation, that when we were young, queer communities did not exist. You were invisible. We had no one to talk to about it. We want to talk about it with youth. We don't want them to feel invisible because we grew up that way."
For members of Rainbow Calgary Elders, Unison at Kerby Centre has become more than a meeting place. It is somewhere to feel seen.
The society has operated out of Unions since 2017, after launching through Calgary Catholic Family Services, which recognised a need for a space where the rainbow community could gather. What started as a small notice in the newspaper has grown into a group of about 120 members, supported by an eight-person board and three years of funding from the Chinook Fund.
President Donna Thorsten says the group exists to bring people together who might otherwise feel alone.
“We provide a service for the community,” she says. “There are so many little circles, or queer groups. We are trying to bridge these gaps.”
Events coordinator Nia Delafleur puts it simply: “If we are all in separate, smaller groups, we’re like clams on the beach. They can pick us off one at a time. We bridge the gaps to become more unified. We can weather this together.”
That sense of unity took on new importance during the pandemic. Zoom meetings did not work well for seniors, and isolation left many members searching for connection once restrictions lifted.
“Covid made it all so lonely,” Delafleur says.
Since then, REC has grown its programming. The group meets twice a month at Kerby, with a learning session on the first Wednesday featuring guest speakers, and a social gathering on the third. Members also gather regularly for coffee at Gravity, host a monthly potluck and movie night at Vantage Enterprises in Inglewood, and play music bingo. A popular all-inclusive swim day at Mount Royal University regularly sells out, drawing well over a hundred people from across the community.
REC has also built connections across generations. The group has been invited into local high schools to speak with Gay-Straight Alliance groups, helping bridge the gap between older and younger members of the queer community.
“Our trans youth are being attacked,” Thorsten says. “We have neurodivergent queer youth who don’t have an older queer person in their lives. We know they are going through a lot. We want to be a positive person for them.”
For Thorsten, that outreach carries personal meaning. “We recognise, as the older generation, that when we were young, queer communities did not exist. You were invisible. We had no one to talk to about it. We want to talk about it with youth. We don’t want them to feel invisible because we grew up that way.”
The group is also working to make retirement and care homes more welcoming for queer seniors, many of whom feel pressure to hide who they are in those settings.
Above all, REC wants people to know they do not have to go through any of it alone.
“There’s not just one type of queer,” Delafleur says. “It doesn’t matter where on the spectrum you are. You fit.”
Rainbow Calgary Elders welcomes new members to its coffee meet-ups and events at Kerby Centre.
