PIE Day - March 14 (3.14) - will be celebrated in Lacombe this year with a gathering at the Lacombe Memorial Centre that offers a space to talk inclusion, experience, and action. 

The event is about being 'Public, Intentional and Explicit' in terms of discussing how the community can better meet the needs of marginalized people. The event is hosted by Living Free, a local advocacy group that started last year to raise awareness and build capacity for understanding and support in central Alberta. It is also being held in partnership with the Mary C. Moore Public Library. 

PIE Day events are held across the country to support National Affirming Day, which celebrates the inclusion of LGBTQ2s+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit and other gender-diverse persons) people within faith communities. 

However, the upcoming event is not only for people of faith, rather it is a community-wide invitation to listen to people's stories and to learn from one another. 

Lacombe's "Chew and Chat" event will be held at the LMC from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m, and is open to members of the community to come and engage. And yes, there will be actual pie.

"What we're planning on doing is having different speakers, table discussions and then a more holistic discussion within the room on different subjects. LGBTQ2s+ issues will be the main focus, but there will be many different views," explained event organizer Marco Ste-Marie. 

Ste-Marie said the event will include perspectives from people who work at Rainbow House in Edmonton, which helps to relocate LGBTQ2s+ people from refugee camps to Canada. As well, there will be presentations from same-gender couples on raising kids, and from parents who are raising transgender or queer kids. 

"I'll be speaking as well on what it means to be a minister or pastor, to be of the faith and defending LGBTQ+ people, and being an ally for them," Ste-Marie said. 

"One of the things we will be talking about is what is the situation for people from other countries? For some people here, in Canada, it's not easy to live authentically and we have everything - we are equal citizens, we have rights but there are countries without that. What does that mean for people? What can we do? What can we be for them?"

Ste-Marie said the event will focus on personal experiences, but more broadly on what supports exist or are missing in central Alberta, specifically in centres outside of Red Deer - smaller, rural communities where acceptance can be difficult to find. 

"This PIE event will be a great learning experience for us all, I will say. Someone might be a lesbian, for example, but may not necessarily understand the dynamic of what transgender is. Someone else might not understand what it’s like to raise transgender kids. We will be there to share our experiences and learn from one another. We’re not going there telling people what to think and how to think, but rather to be a community together and learn from one another’s experiences," he said. 

Growing up as a gay man, Ste-Marie said he often felt there weren't positive representations of gay men in his life and he found it hard to access positive role models. 

"The only images I would get of other LGBTQ+ people were caricatures - people who were "way out there"," he explained. "Oftentimes they were depicted as evil or twisted or deviants - but how about the ordinary guy like me? Where's my role model?". 

Ste-Marie continued, "This is important to me on that personal level, to give that to someone. I don't want other people to go through what I've been through. The reason that I'm able to be a minister and be out in central Alberta is because of the other people before me that stood up for me to have a voice. Today, I have a voice and I want to give that to other people."