Pride season brings the community together to show support and celebrate the diversity and inclusion of members of the LGBTQ2 communities.

Pride week is celebrated right across Canada in August, but The Boys and Girls Club (BGC) of Cochrane and Area is kicking off the festivities early this year.

Bethany Poettcker is Youth Worker with the club and she explains that they are looking for local artists to show off their pride.

"In preparation for Pride Week coming up in August, to kind of kick things off we came up with this concept of a Pride T-Shirt Contest," says Poettcker.

Local Cochrane and Morley artists are encouraged to submit their artwork and Poettcker says that the winning entry will be printed on this year's BGC Cochrane Pride shirts.

"We are calling on all young people age 12 to 22 to enter this T-Shirt Contest," says Poettcker. "It's going to be a pride-themed t-shirt with the BGC logo."

Poettcker says that creativity is in the hands of the artists to decide how they want to submit their artwork.

"It can be a digital design or it can be a hand-drawn design as well," explains Poettcker. "As long as we receive a picture of it we can figure out the formatting of the design later, once the contest winner is decided."

Along with having their artwork displayed and sold on this year's pride T-Shirts, the winner will receive free pride gear, including a shirt with their design on it. 

Submissions will be collected until July 16. Anyone ages 12 to 22 who lives in the Cochrane and Morley area can submit an entry to bpoettcker@bgccochrane.ca.