One of the first of its kind in Canada, the Prince George Library offers its Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) as a safe place for teens to be.
The group geared for those between 13 and 18 has been going strong since February 2013 with about 15 people attending the every-other-Tuesday meetings regularly, with the next one to be held Tuesday at the downtown branch from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and bowling will be the outing for the evening.
"Everybody is welcome and, of course, it's a safe space for all LGTBQ youth but it's open to all our friends, allies and it's really just a safe space for teenagers to come and hang out," said Michael Cruickshank, teen programmer and readers' advisory at the library.
From one meeting to the next activities tend to vary a lot, he added.
"It can be anything from crafts to movie and pizza night, every once in a while we go on little field trips, so we'll go swimming, to the theatre, the YMCA, or something like that," said Cruickshank.
"We do outdoor activities, sometimes in the summer we're known to have water fights.
"I try to get all my input from the kids themselves and what they want to do and then I see it as my job to make that happen."
During the last meeting of the QSA, the group made a giant banner to carry during the Pride Parade.
"So the next time we'll be meeting as a group is a kind of special one-off at the Pride Parade Saturday morning," said Cruickshank. The parade begins at
11 a.m. and travels throughout the downtown core of the city and comes full circle to conclude at the Pride Festival at Veterans' Plaza at city hall.
"The library itself has been in the Pride Parade a few different times but this is the first time the initiative comes from the QSA itself," he added.
The group's name has changed from Gay Straight Alliance mostly because the library wants to be as inclusive as possible.
"This is an awesome program," said Cruickshank.
"We do get quite a few trans(gender) youth and what have you here, too, so we wanted to make sure that the name was indicative of that and we made sure that everyone felt welcome."
For more information visit www.pgpl.ca.
