Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop, the first LGBT bookstore in Canada and one of the oldest in the world, was in dire financial straits just a year ago. Saved from the brink of closing by a group of community members who pulled together to purchase it, Glad Day has gone through a resurgence and is planning for its future, the Globe and Mail reports.
Michael Erickson, a high school teacher and current CEO of Glad Day, led 22 others in purchasing the store in 2012, after owner John Scythes decided to sell. They celebrated their first year of community ownership in late June, with cabaret performances and author readings.
Erickson and Glad Day's other owners plan to expand the store's online presence. They successfully funded a $15,000 crowd-funding campaign to create a new website in early June; 2,000 LGBT books will be available for purchase online. In the hopes of further turning the store into a community and cultural hub, Glad Day's event space was also recently renovated, and has attracted a wide range of LGTB authors and groups.
"As a community, we're changing in terms of age, gender, sexual identity, race, religion and accessibility," Erickson told the Globe and Mail. "Glad Day is choosing to embrace diversity into its new DNA."