Picture being shot Friday Sept. 30 at noon.
Thousands of Alberta students paid tribute to the survivors of Canada’s residential school system Friday by donning orange shirts.
Friday was the first official Orange Shirt Day in Alberta. The event is part of a national campaign that seeks to honour residential school survivors and promote reconciliation.
The event was inspired by the experience of B.C. residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad, who, at age six, was stripped of the orange shirt she was wearing by school authorities on her first day of school in 1973.
St. Albert Catholic High School graduate Arlyssa McArthur submitted the winning design for Alberta’s Orange Shirt Day shirt earlier this year, and received a framed version of her design at the Orange Shirt Day event at Edmonton city hall Friday.
The event has proven far more popular than expected, with about 8,000 of the official shirts being sold in Alberta, said Leslie MacEachern, spokesperson for The Society for Safe and Caring Schools & Communities (one of the groups behind Orange Shirt Day in Alberta).
“Our poor shirt guy,” she said, laughing.
Leo Nickerson students wore orange on Friday in recognition of the event, and will spend next week watching videos and taking lessons related to Canada’s aboriginal past, said principal Kevin Jones.
“We want it to be a little bit more meaningful to them than just wearing orange.”
Other students read books or watched videos related to residential schools and post paper hands containing words on why every child matters as part of Orange Shirt Day, MacEachern said.
In an email, McArthur said that she was proud and honoured to know that her design was on all those orange shirts.
“I’m hopeful that the logo will inspire conversation and awareness about residential schools, and promote reconciliation. Every child matters.”
One dollar from each Orange Shirt Day shirt goes towards Safe and Caring Schools to promote healthy relationships.
Hundreds of St. Albert students will get free lunches in the next three years thanks to a whopper of a donation from local Rotarians.
The Rotary Club of St. Albert – Saint City presented the St. Albert Public School board with a cheque for $5,000 Wednesday night in support of the district’s Appetite to Achieve program, which provides free meals and snacks to low-income students.
It’s the first chunk of some $15,000 the club plans to give to the program over three years, said club secretary Linda Perras.
St. Albert’s public schools used to provide free meals for students with the help of the national Breakfast for Learning fund, but lost the fund’s support a few years ago because the city’s income level was too high to qualify for it, said Marianne Barrett, associate superintendent of programming and planning for the board.
“There’s a perception that St. Albert’s a wealthy community,” she said, but there are pockets of people who are struggling.
“The needs are not as high (as inner city Edmonton), but the needs are still there.”
Last year, the board started asking local service clubs to help fund the meal program, which costs about $15,000 a year and provides about 300 students a day with snacks and meals.
The Rotary Club noted that many St. Albert students were going to school hungry and asked to support the program, Perras said. The club agreed to chip in $15,000; $10,000 of which came from a certain St. Albert philanthropist who often contributes to the club’s fundraising efforts. The rest came from events such as the Saint City Rotary Charity Golf Classic.
This cash will give the program the stability the board needs to do some long-term planning, Barrett said.
Donations to Appetite to Achieve can be made at the district office.
