A local family has a new Pride flag waving proudly in front of their home, after the previous flag was stolen last week.
Wendy Godfrey and her husband Michael have raised the Pride flag every year in June for the past few years, in honour of Pride Month. In previous years, they haven’t encountered any problems, but when they woke up on June 16, they found the flag had been stolen.
She took to the Estevan Rant and Rave Facebook page to vent about the theft.
“Sometimes you just have to get it out, and let people know the flag had been stolen,” said Godfrey.
The rope on their flagpole had also been cut.
After Godfrey’s post, one local woman, Roberta DeRosier, reached out to Godfrey with money so they could purchase a new Pride flag. And another local woman, Macie Rae, donated a flag, which was raised on June 19, after a few repairs to the flagpole were completed.
“Our flag pole needed a few adjustments and fixing, and he did that, and the flag went up almost immediately. We’re very, very happy to be flying the Pride flag once again,” said Godfrey.
The money that DeRosier donated for the purchase of a new flag will instead be directed to an LGBTQSA+ doing work in the community.
Godfrey had wanted a Pride flag to hang in front of their house for a long time. A few years ago, she was at the flag-raising ceremony at city hall.
“I was talking to some folks from the Pride group from Moose Jaw that was here, and they had one flag. And so I begged them to sell it to me, and they did,” said Godfrey. “And so we’ve flown that ever since, mostly always in June. We’ll put it up for the month of June, because that’s when the Pride Month celebrations go on. We want people to know we’re affirming and believe in that cause.”
This marked the first time they have had any issues with flying the Pride flag, but it`s the fourth flag they`ve had stolen. Previously they have had a Royal Canadian Air Force flag, an Ontario flag and a Union Jack flag taken.
Godfrey noted that when their Ontario flag was stolen, the perpetrators took the whole flagpole.
“We’ve been flying flags for over 20 years,” said Godfrey. “It’s been quite a long time since we’ve lost one, actually.”
The flags in front of their home change quite often, because her husband has a wide variety of flags.
The response from the community has been “amazing” since they turned to social media with their story.
“We had so many people commenting on social media that they were upset that it would happen. A lot of people were just backing the Pride community, saying that we need to keep doing these things and making statements in a positive way for the Pride community,” said Godfrey.
People have been telling her how much they appreciate the Godfreys’ different flags, because people do enjoy seeing the different flags in front of the family’s house.
