“Wearing an orange shirt is the best way to bring awareness to an issue that is very fragile for a lot of people,” said Kimmie Charlton postal clerk at Canada Post in CFB Shilo on Sept. 26. “For everyone it means something different,” she explained wearing her own orange shirt days before the Base holds National Truth and Reconciliation ceremonies on Sept. 28. Photo: K-J Millar/Shilo Stag News

Public commemoration of residential schools’ tragic, painful history and ongoing impacts is vital to the reconciliation process, said Lieutenant-Colonel David Cronk, CFB Shilo Base Commander, on Sept. 26.

Base Command Team encourages all community members to wear orange and be part of the commemorative events at CFB Shilo, Sept. 28 (Thursday) starting at 9:30 a.m.

CFB Shilo will host a walk, in recognition of the day, starting with offerings of prayers and tobacco at Base Headquarters memorial teepee, smudging for those who wish to participate and the raising of the Treaty One flag at the south gate. The ceremony and walk are open to the public and all military personnel.

While the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is recognized on Sept. 30 each year, this year, the federal statutory holiday is honoured on Oct. 2.

“The day honours the children who never returned home and survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities,” Lt.-Col. Cronk said.

“The orange shirt is a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.”

The Every Child Matters shirts are an ode to Phyllis Webstad, who, as a young girl, was taken to residential school in 1973, where she was stripped of a new orange shirt her grandmother purchased for her.

Webstad’s story was paramount in growing a local community event in Williams Lake B.C., into a national holiday of remembrance of residential school survivors and those who did not return home.

Orange shirts have become a symbol of the Every Child Matters movement after 215 Indigenous children’s bodies were detected in graves at a Kamloops residential school in 2021. The number continues to climb across the country.

“Wear orange – Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day intended to raise awareness of the inter-generational impacts of residential schools. It promotes … Every Child Matters.”

“Here in Shilo please join us Sept. 28 on our walk for reconciliation,” the Base Command Team stated.

“… And on September 30, we encourage you to wear orange to honour the thousands of Survivors of residential schools.”