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Orange Shirt Day

Lakes District Secondary School students dressed in orange T-shirts marched along Hwy. 16 in Burns Lake to honour Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day
Orange Shirt Day.

Lakes District Secondary School students dressed in orange T-shirts marched along Hwy. 16 in Burns Lake to honour Orange Shirt Day - a day to remember those who have been affected by residential schools - on Sept. 30.

The Orange Day Shirt walk was last Friday was part of the Lakes District Secondary School’s (LDSS) ‘roots of reconciliation’ project, which started last year with the goal of educating students about residential schools. Orange Shirt Day grew from the story of one child, Phyllis (Jack) Webstad, whose grandmother gave her a shiny orange shirt to wear at St.

Joseph Mission Residential School. On her first day at the school, the shirt was taken away, never to be seen again.

Gone, too, was the child’s sense of dignity and self-worth. But that child persevered, she made it through residential school, and now she shares her stories so that people can better understand the legacy of residential schools in Canada.

LDSS principal Heidi Grant said the march was about “continuing the momentum forward” around the topic.