By Emily Keller

Orange Shirt Day 2019

Orange Shirt Day to be recognized this Monday

Sep 27, 2019 | 5:05 PM

This Monday is Orange Shirt Day, a day dedicated to remembering and honouring Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada.

Several schools in the Grande Prairie area will be having assemblies and events for the day. Students and staff are encouraged to wear an orange shirt.

The city of Grande Prairie will also be holding a commemorative event on Monday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre. There will be three generations of speakers there to talk about the impacts of residential schools, as well as the unveiling of a design for a new memorial planned for the city to recognize those impacted by residential schools.

The day is called orange shirt day after Phyllis Webstad gave her story at a commemorative event in 2013 at the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school near Williams Lake, BC. Webstad recounted her time as the third generation having attended the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school and being stripped of her new orange shirt on her first day there.

The September 30th date was chosen because it was when most Indigenous children were taken from their homes and sent to residential schools.

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Approximately 150,000 Metis, Inuit, and First Nations children were sent to residential schools between the 1960s and 1990s, with the last federally run residential school in Canada being closed in 1996 in Punnichy, Saskatchewan.