June 2021

We are sure you've noticed all of the rainbow colored items show up in stores around June 1st. No, it is not rainbow unicorn appreciation month; June is Pride Month. As the COVID rules start to relax, the likelihood of festivities increase so, we wouldn't be surprised to see pride parades this year. June isn't just Pride Month, and there are some other important dates within the month of June. For example, World Environment Day (June 5th), World Oceans Day (June 8th), World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15th), Juneteenth (June 19th), Father's Day (June 20th which is immediately followed by the first day of summer), and National Insurance Awareness Day (June 28th). World Environment Day and World Oceans Day are exactly what they sound like: they are in place to raise awareness of environmental impacts to the Earth (just in general) and the Ocean. While we are talking about it, a fun fact about the ocean is that most of the world's oxygen comes from phytoplankton and not trees (somewhere between 50-80%) .

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is also pretty self explanatory, although, you may be shocked to know that around 1 in 6 people 60 years and older experienced some form of abuse in community settings during the past year (May 2020 through May 2021). Rates of elder abuse are higher in institutions such as nursing homes and long-term care facilities, with 2 in 3 staff reporting that they have committed some type of abuse within the past year. Knowing this, it is no surprise that rates of elder abuse have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elder abuse is predicted to increase as many countries are experiencing rapidly ageing populations due to the increase in the world's population. Elder abuse is not limited to physical abuse; it can also be verbal, psychological, or financial.

Following that is Juneteenth, which, if you did not know of this day prior to 2013, you are not alone. That is because it was not recognized until 1979 as a holiday, but that was only in Texas. It wasn't until 2018 that the Senate passed legislation that made the Junteenth a national day of observance (think Flag Day or Patriot Day). Juneteenth is now a federally recognized holiday - the first new federal holiday in years. In case you were wondering or weren't sure, Juneteeth is a day celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the US.

There is also Father's Day (which was created to complement Mother's Day), in which we celebrate fathers, fathering, and fatherhood. Interestingly enough, Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington, at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd. Father's Day's first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910, which Dodd held in honor of her father, a Civil War veteran who was a single parent who raised his six children. After hearing a sermon about Anna Jarvis's Mother's Day at Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909, Dodd told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring fathers. Although she initially suggested June 5 (her father's birthday) the pastors of the Spokane Ministerial Alliance did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. And here we are more than 100 years later still proudly celebrating.