Pancakes, Pride & paint: HSN hosts inclusive breakfast event

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To celebrate Pride Week, Sudbury’s Health Sciences North hosted its first-ever Pride Pancake breakfast on Thursday.

The event saw dozens of staff and members of the community come out to enjoy rainbow-coloured pancakes.

Dr. Andrew Pearce, a doctor at HSN, came up with the idea.

“I trained out in Alberta, before I came back home to Sudbury,” he said.

“With the Calgary Stampede, you know, we have this big pancake breakfast at the hospital, and it’s a fun time. So, we were deciding what to do this year. I’m like, ‘hey, let’s do that.’”

Local politicians – including MPP Jamie West and Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre – along with leadership at HSN took the time to make some pancakes, .

“A lot of times come to the hospital isn’t really fun for a lot of people,” West said.

“It’s one way to thank the staff. But also a lot of patients are coming out and people who are visiting patients. The other thing that Pride Week is pretty important in Sudbury, and I think that having events for pride all over the city is important as well for our community.”

Lefebvre shared his strategy for making pancakes.

“We got to make sure that the batter is really well done, right? And after that, everything comes out of that,” he said. “My wife is a master pancake maker. And so I’m always there to help her out. So today is just about supporting and making it happen that people can come and enjoy the day.”

Following the breakfast and speeches, volunteers and staff grabbed paint rollers to touch up the Pride crosswalk outside the hospital.

Jessica Diplock, vice president of people and culture at HSN, said the goal of the event is to show that everyone belongs.

“People want to know that they are accepted for who they are, that their voice matters, and that they don’t have to hide parts of themselves to feel safe or to succeed,” she said.

The event took months of planning and was organized by a committee made up primarily of volunteers, along with students from the Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients program (STOP).

Michael Reich and Jill Kusnierczyk are student volunteers and co-leads of STOP.

“Northern Ontario is all about community and this is community at its finest, right?” Reich said.

“We’re all working together towards the same goal, right. Raising awareness. And we’re having fun doing it.”

Kusnierczyk said it’s been fun to collaborate as a team to put the event together.

“Getting to meet other staff at HSN patients as well as other colleagues from the cancer center, which has been really nice,” she said. “So getting together is really it’s what pride is about and it’s what pancakes are about.

Pearce said that the breakfast is also about sending a vital message of safety and support to the local 2SLGBTQ+ community.

“I would love the day where we say, you know, we don’t need to celebrate pride because it just goes without saying, but the truth is, we’re not there yet,” he said.

“I think the, the LGBTQ+ folks in our community, need to know that the staff are here for you. The hospital is here for you. This is everyone’s hospital.”

Pearce said there are plans to make the Pride Pancake breakfast an annual event.

Pride week runs until Sunday, June 19.