Orange Shirt Day
On September 30, wear an orange shirt to remember and honour Indigenous children who were taken from their homes.
On September 30, people all across Canada will wear orange shirts to remember and honour Indigenous children who were taken from their communities and families to residential schools.
The summer of 2021 was a summer of orange shirts as Indigenous communities across the country shared the truth they have always known: that many of the children who never returned from residential schools remain on the grounds of those institutions in unmarked burial sites. These communities are now seeking to honour the missing children.
This Orange Shirt Day is also the first observance of a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. For settler Christians in particular, this is a time when we can reflect on our role in colonialism and the residential school system, and our ongoing responsibility to make reparations.
Why Orange?
Phyllis Jack Webstad from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation went to St. Joseph Mission Residential School. On her first day of school, Phyllis wore an orange shirt that her grandmother had given her. It was immediately taken away, and that marked the beginning of Phyllis’s long separation from her family and community, a separation caused by actions of the church and federal government.
Orange Shirt Day is a time for us all to remember those events, their ongoing impact, and just as importantly the continuing strength and resilience of Indigenous peoples.
A Prayer for Orange Shirt Day
to remember and honour all the Indigenous children who went to residential schools.
Today we wear orange and we pray
for the residential school and intergenerational survivors who are still struggling.
Today we wear orange and we are thankful
for those who speak the truth, and who work to shine a light on injustice.
Today we wear orange in the name of compassion and the spirit of truth and reconciliation.
Help us, God, to remember and act on this this every day.
Amen.
―This prayer was inspired by Honarine Scott’s Orange Shirt Day blog.
From the United Church of Canada:
Canadian Residential School History:
“I Am Not a Number” by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Gillian Newland.
