A kindergarten student and her family took matters into her own hands after a tiny PRIDE flag in her class garden was stolen and replaced with a rag.
Late July, Evelyn Blyth and her family were tending to their class garden in Westwood Public School called ‘The Hive’ when they noticed the dirty rag in their community garden which made them very upset.
“It's a sign of love and the person that took it didn’t have any love,” said Evelyn’s older sister, Emily Blyth.
And so, the two girls and their mom painted and built a wooden flag soon to be mounted permanently in the garden so no one can ever take it again. The children glued planks of wood together to create the new flag designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018 which in addition to the traditional rainbow flag, includes blue, pink and white for transgender representation, and black and brown to represent people of colour.
“It was the sweetest thing. Their older sister Emily was like ‘If it's taken away, we'll just have to build it again 10 times bigger,’” said Monsma.
“We just feel pretty blown away by this little act of kindness from the family. I'm queer myself and a member of the LGBTQ community but beyond that, being a Kindergarten teacher just teaching the kids in our class about inclusivity and the importance of importance of everybody being unique and included.”
Monsma said it's important for her and her teaching partner, Melissa Kooiman to teach students that differences are beautiful and representation matters.
“It was very upsetting to them as well to hear that our special pride flag had been taken,” said Monsma about the students in her class.
Kooiman said the initial flag was donated to the classroom by a community member who wanted to support The Hive, a large space behind the school with planters and tires and rain barrels filled with perennial and pollinator plants.
Emily and Evelyn’s mother Krista Harper said when she was building the flag with the girls, she talked about how the flag is a sign of love and respect for everybody.
“And the fact that it was gone, was incredibly disappointing and that, for it to be a more permanent piece of the school, was important,” said Harper.
“So, we talked about that, and we also talked about how there are still unfortunately people out there that might not like it and what would happen if it got taken,” said Harper, adding that the kids were determined to keep building a flag.
