Trillium Lakelands District School Board students will be wearing orange as a sign of solidarity with the Indigenous community.
Coming up on Friday is Orange Shirt Day, a day used to commemorate victims of Canada’s residential schools. Orange Shirt Day first began in 2013 inspired by a woman named Phyllis Webstad’s story. Webstad, who was six-years-old at the time, attended St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in Williams Lake, B.C. in 1973.
On her first day, she was stripped of all her clothes including a new orange shirt that her grandmother had gotten her. Though she never wore the shirt again, Webstad tells her story every year and gets involved by sharing what had happened to her and the reasoning for Orange Shirt Day.
The day started being recognized in Williams Lake and now schools all over the country take part on September 30th. Local students are being asked to wear an orange shirt on Friday in honour of the day because it falls on a Sunday this year.
The goal of Orange Shirt Day is to discuss residential schools and to combat bullying and racism within schools. The Orange Shirt Society suggests schools watch “Phyllis’s Story,” and take part in a discussion about how “every child matters.” They also suggest getting students to trace their hands and write in the hand something that they can do to help others feel like they matter.