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Date: 8/8/2022
BELCHERTOWN — The Rainbow Coffee Hour is a new LGBTQIA+ social coffee group that meets the second Wednesday of every month from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Belchertown Senior Center for ages 50 and above.
Founder Marc Barrette said, “We opened it up to the public. We just meet; it’s no format, no agenda, we just get together for an hour once a month to be able to chat and socialize with each other. The idea is to just give people a place to meet and feel comfortable. There’s no judgment or discrimination.”
Katy Martin, administrative assistant at Belchertown Senior Center added, “We are always happy to add additional community programming within the center. Our goal is to always welcome as many community members as possible in whatever way they’re most comfortable in attending.”
She continued, “We’re always willing to listen to ideas and thoughts of those in the community that would like to come in and have access to the center in one way or the other. We’re always willing to create new programming based on what’s being requested.”
Barrette is a Belchertown resident and retiree who teaches technology at the Belchertown Senior Center. He originally came up with the idea in the month of June, which is Pride Month for the LGBTQIA+ communities.
“I’ve lived in several places in the United States where they’ve had big Pride festivals, but here in Belchertown, a smaller town, we had nothing.” Barrette explained. In 2022, he thought this was a perfect time to give the opportunity for a lot of the older people of the LGBTQIA+ community a chance to get to know each other. He presented the idea to the director of the senior center and the rest is history.
“My premise of starting the Rainbow Coffee Hour Group was to give each other a chance to meet,” Barrette said. “Once we get to know each other, we could start to have frank, undisturbed conversations about the past, how we were treated, how things went and how things have changed over the years.”
Barrette told Reminder Publishing they have allies that come to the meetings. Over 50 people attended their very first meeting which Barrette admitted he was taken aback by the amount of people that showed up. He said the other people in the room were taken aback as well because they never knew so many people were in the area.
The Rainbow Coffee Hour has been averaging about 25 people per meeting. So far, without any planning, select board members from the town have come to their meetings, along with Jake Olivera running for state representative, Yvonne Gittelson, running for Hampshire County sheriff, and Aaron Saunders for state representative.
“As a catalyst for change, I just saw the opportunity and I took it,” Barrette said. “We’re not trying to set a political agenda; we just want these gatherings to be free flowing so that if you do come and just want to have a cup of coffee and talk to somebody, that’s fine.”
He continued, “We needed a place where we can meet and not have any of the outside factors become a factor. Just a human-to-human conversation and that’s why I started this group. My hope is that Rainbow Coffee Hour will blossom, and Belchertown will continue to grow in spirit and mind and be even more accepting.”
To learn more about the Rainbow Coffee Hour, visit the website at www.rainbowcoffeehour.com. The Belchertown Senior Center is located on 60 State St., and is open Mondays from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and Tuesdays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.